On a Night Like This (10 page)

But he sat, frozen, and Gray appeared, dressed in a different suit, newly showered, hair slicked back, face smiling. He leaned back inside—to kiss her good-bye? To grab his briefcase? And then he closed the door and headed down the path.

Luke had never thought to see if Gray’s car was still there.
I’m one helluva private eye,
he thought.

Gray Healy. Blessed? Certainly buoyant this morning, walking with a little lift between steps as if he had spent the night in the arms of a tall, blond and drop-dead gorgeous woman.

Luke was out of the car and heading toward the house before he made any decision. He reached the door in a second, without being conscious of having crossed the street or walked up the path. And his hand was knocking on the door, as if it were an independent thing, not his arm at all.

No one answered. He sensed someone inside, felt her presence rather than catching any glimpse of her or anyone else; he held his breath, hoping he would hear some movement, the drop of a curtain upstairs, the intake of breath as she saw him standing there.

There was no one at the window, no curtain falling back into place.

He turned and left, climbed into his truck, drove away.

He was shaking; he saw that now. In a rush he suddenly felt too much at once—fury, fear, anguish. He was confused, driving too fast through unfamiliar streets.

He thought of Sweetpea, of Blair, of the cottage in the back of the purple Victorian, and he turned toward the Haight, sped toward Blair, thinking:
Somehow, Blair will make me stop feeling like this.

By the time he reached the Haight, his eyes were fogging, so he could barely see his way to a parking space. He knew Emily had been there, in that house, and that she knew he was there at the door. She had run away from him, and she didn’t want him to find her. It took his breath away, as if for three months he had not quite believed it, not quite felt the heavy weight of it, and now it knocked him out, a wild punch in the gut, followed by a blast of pain.

He walked up toward Blair’s cottage, thankful that her hippie landlord wasn’t lurking.

He knocked lightly on her door, glancing at his watch. It was nine o’clock, an hour too early for her breakfast in bed.

“Come in,” he heard her call out.

He walked in, walked down the tiny hallway to her open bedroom, stood in her doorway.

She was lying in bed. She looked at him and lifted her covers to invite him in.

He climbed into her bed and she held him, let him cry softly, without asking a question.

Chapter Five

S
he liked the size of him, the broad back in front of her own small torso on the bed, the way her arm wrapped around his flannel shirt and pulled him toward her, pressing him into her. She curved her legs into the back of his, somehow matching them—she was not tall, but her legs were long, and she could tell he carried his height in his upper body. She liked the heat of him, the smell of him as she pressed her face into the back of his neck.

She knew he was crying. That didn’t bother her—there was something different about this man, something that allowed him this. And she liked forgetting about herself for a moment.

She didn’t want to know why—she was sure it had something to do with the wife. Ex-wife? She didn’t know the story and wasn’t in any rush to find out. Life was complicated. This, on the other hand, a man in her bed, crying, seemed so very simple.

She was wearing a tank top and cotton pajama bottoms and she hadn’t brushed her teeth and she had never even kissed this man. She had watched him, for years, when they were kids in high school. From afar. She remembered one day when she had cut class—probably Latin, which she hated—and had taken a walk to the creek behind the school to smoke a cigarette by herself. She saw two kids downstream, Luke and his girlfriend, Trish, lying on a wide, flat rock, idly touching each other, sometimes kissing. Luke’s hand was stroking the girl’s body as if that were all he wanted to do in the world.

Blair was mesmerized. This was a glimpse into another world. She had just lost her virginity with a boy from her neighborhood, a boy who had already dropped out of school and was working at the convenience store. They had gone to elementary school together, and then she had been whisked away from his world to go to the private school in San Francisco.

“Stop staring at me,” she had said to him when she stopped in the store the week before to pick up cigarettes.

“You think you’re too good for us,” the boy had said.

“No, I don’t,” she had answered. He looked different from how she remembered him—darker, more mysterious, somehow older than she. The boys at her own school were so young and safe, it seemed.

“You’re not,” he had said. He never took his eyes off her.

“I know that,” she had replied.

“Wait for me after work,” he had said, daring her. “I close at eleven.”

She was waiting for him in the parking lot at eleven, terrified, determined not to show it. He had a friend with a studio in the Mission and the guy would give them pot, he said. And a bed, he said. They took a bus to the Mission and found the friend’s apartment, smoked weed with him and another girl, an older girl. Then the boy led her into the bedroom and fumbled his way into her clothes, into her body. She didn’t stop him. She wanted to know what sex was. Now she knew. He drove her home, using his friend’s old car, dropped her off at her house.

Had she proven that she wasn’t any better than they were? Yes, she had certainly proved that. She never saw him again.

The boy on the rock by the creek, Luke Bellingham, knew something else about sex. She had seen it that day, had watched him touch his girlfriend, and she kept watching for an hour or so. When Luke and Trish left, without ever making love, Blair felt oddly sick, as if she had done something terrible. She never went back to school that day.

Now Luke was lying next to her. He didn’t seem to care that she was unpopular or rude or dying. He pressed his body back against hers as if he had never needed anyone so intensely in his life. And she held him.

Finally, after some time had passed and his body seemed calmer, quieter, Blair whispered in his ear: “I don’t see any croissants here.”

So he rolled over, smiling, and took her in his arms, as if he had done this many times, curling around her, pulling her so close she felt the heat of his skin through his clothes.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

His hands began to explore her body, over her pj’s, following the contours of her shoulder, arm, waist, hip, thigh, then rounding up her back.

“You feel so good,” he whispered.

“That’s just because you’ve been sleeping with a dog for too long.”

“Where is that dog of mine?”

“Amanda took her for a walk.”

“Will she be back any time soon?”

“Too soon for you to get fresh with me.”

“Damn,” Luke said, and pulled back so he could see her expression.

“You OK?” she asked, watching him.

“Better,” he said.

“You want to talk?”

“I did something really stupid,” he said.

She reached up and smoothed his hair away from his forehead.

He looked at her. “Why didn’t I fall for you in high school?” he asked.

“I was weird,” she said. “I’m still weird, but now so are you.”

“Thank you,” he told her.

“What did you do? The stupid thing?”

“I tried to find my wife. I might have found her.”

Blair didn’t say anything, but she felt herself pull back a little, as if she needed some space between their bodies.

“No, don’t go away.” He held on to her.

“What happened?” Blair asked.

“I think she’s having an affair. She’s in a house in Noe Valley. The man went to her last night.”

They didn’t say anything for a while. Blair saw the pain in his eyes.

“Isn’t that easier?” she finally said. “That she left you for another man? She might have even loved you the way you thought she did and then she found someone she loved more.”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe that,” he said. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know what I would do?” she asked, pushing back from him and sitting up in bed. “I don’t know anything about love. I’m the world’s greatest failure at love.”

“Have you been in love?”

“I love my daughter. I love Daniel. That’s good enough for me.”

“No love affairs?”

“Affairs. I can get a guy. I just can’t get in love with a guy.”

“Why?”

“Hey, wait a second. We were talking about you. If we’re going to start talking about me, I want breakfast in bed.”

Luke leaned over and kissed Blair tenderly on the mouth. She watched him and saw that he, too, watched her. He smiled when he was done.

“How do you like your coffee?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I want you to leave,” she said quietly.

So he pulled her back to him, and she slipped down in the bed, into his arms, and this time when he kissed her, they opened their mouths and closed their eyes and lost themselves in the kiss. Their bodies wrapped around each other and then unwrapped, while their hands pushed up each other’s shirts, sought the heat of their skin, fumbled around in clothing as if they were indeed high school kids fooling around for the first time.

They moved around each other, exploring new territory, skin and hair and muscle and bone. Luke kissed her collarbone, the nape of her neck, her ears, her face. His hands rode over her body as if her clothes had melted away, both of them feeling too much even through the thin cotton. She felt herself gasping for breath, and at one moment Luke asked worriedly, “Are you all right?”

“Shh,” she said. “I’m wonderful.”

He turned her over then and, with her shirt hiked up, he looked at her back. He ran his finger along the scar from where they had removed the mole, still raw, still awful-looking, she knew. He didn’t say anything and she was glad for that. She felt his lips along the ragged edge of the scar.

She rolled over and held him to her, pressing the full weight of him onto her. He was solid, strong. She liked the earthy smell of him and breathed him in.

He found her mouth and they kissed. This man held nothing back. His urgency excited her, made her want him even more.

His hands moved down along the sides of her body and then he rolled over, pulling her on top of him. She sat up, straddling him, catching her breath. She was smiling.

“You’re amazing,” he said.

“I could almost believe you,” she told him.

“You’re too far away,” he said.

She lowered herself onto him, and then they both heard Sweetpea’s bark, the quick scramble of dog feet on the steps heading up to the front door. Blair shot up off Luke, off the bed, and dashed to her bedroom door, pulling it closed. She heard the front door open at the same time.

She leaned back on the door and saw that Luke was already standing, straightening his clothes.

“Damn,” she muttered.

“Mom?” Amanda called.

“I’ll be right out!” Blair yelled back.

Sweetpea knew Luke was there; she barked and scratched at the closed door of Blair’s bedroom.

“Sweetpea, get away from there!” Amanda called. “Stop barking!”

Luke was composed, somehow, and he leaned over, pressed his mouth to Blair’s cheek, nudged her to the side, and opened the door enough to slide out. He closed the door behind him.

Blair stayed where she was, leaning against the closed door, taking in deep breaths.

“Hi,” she heard Luke say.

“You’re here,” Amanda finally said. She must have been standing in the hallway, blocking Luke’s way.

“I came to visit.”

“I can see that.”

“And to get my dog.”

“You got her.”

They were quiet for a second. Blair held her breath, wanting to hear everything.

“Thanks for walking her,” Luke said.

“My mother’s sick,” Amanda said.

“I know that.”

“She doesn’t need a boyfriend right now.”

“Maybe you’re right. I’m not sure.”

“I’m sure. We’re doing just fine without you.”

“Amanda. You’re sixteen. You can’t take care of everything.”

“Who said you can drop into our lives like this?”

Blair threw open the door and stood there, half-crazed from half sex, glaring at them.

“Amanda!” she said sternly.

Amanda turned and stormed into the kitchen.

Blair put her hand on Luke’s shoulder.

“Bad timing,” she whispered.

“I’ll call you later,” he said.

“You don’t have to leave,” she told him.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“I didn’t get my croissant.”

“I’ll bring it to you another day,” he said, smiling. He leaned over and kissed Blair, who reached up and touched his cheek.

Sweetpea scrambled to her feet and led the way out of the cottage. Blair watched them leave. She heard Amanda banging things around in the kitchen. She walked to the kitchen and stood in the open doorway.

“Nice manners,” she told her daughter.

Amanda was pouring orange juice, freshly squeezed, into a glass. She handed the glass to her mother.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t trust him. Here, drink this.”

“Wow,” Blair said, taking the glass. “What a treat.”

“You need vitamins and stuff. I checked on-line. There’re some articles I want you to read. About treatments, alternative treatments. There’s this place in Mexico—”

“Stop,” Blair said, putting down her glass. “Amanda—”

“They have this great success rate. All these people were told by their doctors that it was too late for treatment and they go to this place in Mexico and they take this herbal stuff—”

“Amanda!”

“Drink your juice, Mom. We can talk about it later. I’ll show you the articles.”

“I don’t want to talk about it later. I told you. My doctor agrees. No treatments. Maybe it’s better this way, sweetheart.”

Amanda turned away from her and started throwing things in a pot on the stove. “Oatmeal?”

“Amanda. Please. I’m not hungry. Come sit down and we’ll talk about it.”

Amanda threw the wooden spoon into the sink. She turned to her mother, her face dark with anger.

“So what are you going to do? Have sex? That’s a great way to deal with this.”

Blair turned away and sank into a chair at the dining-room table.

“Sit down,” she said.

Amanda left the kitchen, slid into the chair across from her mother. Blair saw that she was crying, though she didn’t make a sound.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” Blair admitted. “I’ve never done this before.”

She looked at Amanda, who lowered her head. Blair reached out and lifted her chin, offering her a small smile.

“We’ll do it together. We’ll figure it out. But I’m not running to Mexico for alternative treatments.”

“You could read the articles,” Amanda said, her voice small.

“I don’t think so, Amanda. I think the doctors are right on this one.”

“I never heard of that,” Amanda said, and she choked on a sob. “Everyone does chemo. Or radiation. Or something.”

“Not with advanced melanoma. Not at this stage.”

Amanda dropped her head onto her arms on the table and sobbed. Blair stroked her head. She felt her own tears streaming down her face.

“I don’t know how to let you go,” she murmured, but Amanda was crying too hard to hear her.

Blair made it to work later that day, exhausted before she began. Each day she felt more tired. And she knew she was losing weight, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about it. She couldn’t call in sick. There was plenty of time for that. And she needed to get out of the cottage. She needed to lose herself in the restaurant kitchen.

Daniel was standing in the back bathroom, door open, primping in front of the mirror.

“Why are you here?” he asked, turning around to face her. “Go home. They should never have let you out of the hospital if you won’t stay in bed.”

“I’m fine,” Blair insisted, though she could see by the way Daniel was eyeing her that she didn’t look fine.

“I can cook tonight,” Daniel said. “I still know how to do that.”

“Go wow them up front,” Blair said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

So Daniel went back to fussing with his shirt collar in the mirror.

“You’re gorgeous,” she told him, walking past him to pick up her chef’s jacket. She slapped him on the butt.

“I know,” he said. “Every man in San Francisco is lusting after me.” He turned and kissed her cheek.

“Why don’t you have a lover, Daniel? Why aren’t you madly in love with some hunk of a guy?”

“I don’t believe in love,” he said. “We’re booked tonight. A party of ten, which I set up in the back corner, keep ’em out of everyone’s way. Rianne said she was too hungover to work, so I told her to take one of her magic pills. Expect the worst.”