On a Night Like This (16 page)

“I know,” Blair said. “I just thought—”

“You thought he fell in love with you?”

“You don’t have to say it like it’s impossible to imagine.”

“It’s impossible to imagine.”

“Why?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re odd. Your life is odd. Your daughter is odd. Your cottage is odd. Luke Bellingham lives in the center of the world and you, my dear, inhabit the fringe.”

“I’m exotic.”

“A belly dancer is exotic. You are odd.”

“I heard you. Stop saying that.”

“And, though I hate to say this, you’re dying.”

“There is that.”

“I will love you until your last day. Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” Blair said, and she saw that Daniel looked at her quickly, then away. “Yes, of course. I’m a fool.”

“No doubt.”

Blair was quiet a moment, watching Daniel work. When he paused for a minute, he must have felt her attention because he turned and looked at her.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Luke gave me a taste of something I didn’t even know existed,” she said; her voice was so quiet, Daniel had to lean close to hear.

He nodded. “I know, darling.”

“I could have died without knowing I was missing anything,” Blair said. “But now, I know. Kind of a shame, isn’t it?”

Again Daniel nodded.

“Tell me how you’ll grow old,” Blair said.

“This is it,” Daniel said. “The restaurant. I’ll grow old right here. I’ll be standing here in my bathrobe stirring the sauce.”

“I never imagined the rest of my life,” Blair said. “How did I live like that? I have dreams for Amanda. But for myself—I don’t know. I wanted to have a good day. Pretty limited, don’t you think?”

“Not if the good days add up,” Daniel said.

“You know what I’ll miss,” Blair said to Daniel’s back. She waited till he turned from the stove and faced her again. “Amanda’s life. That’s what twists my heart.”

Daniel nodded. She saw that his eyes were wet.

“Go on,” she said. “Don’t let the sauce burn.”

“I don’t need lessons from you,” he said, getting busy again.

She sat quietly for a moment. And then she said, “I guess I’ll miss the rest of my own life, too.”

Daniel nodded, tossed mushrooms in a pan, added some herbs. In another pan he sautéed a couple of fillets of sole.

“I’ll miss the rest of your life,” Daniel said.

“Sweet friend,” Blair said. She got up from the stool and walked over to him. She pressed a kiss into his back. “I’ll go for a walk,” she said, her voice stronger.

She unbuttoned her chef’s jacket and tossed it onto the stool, then wandered out into the night.

Blair walked home. She trudged up the stairs of her cottage and heard music blasting from within. Hard, raunchy rock music.
Amanda,
she thought.
That’s what I need. Not sex or romance or work—I need my daughter.

She threw open the door and saw Amanda in the middle of the living-room floor, surrounded by books and notebooks. She looked up for a moment, scrunched her face and went back to whatever she was studying.

“Hello, my wonderful girl,” Blair said as she walked over the mess.

“I hate physics,” Amanda mumbled. “Why aren’t you working?”

“I got fired.”

Amanda looked up at her, horrified.

“Just for one night,” Blair explained. “The doc gave me something that made my hands shake. Doesn’t make for a good chef.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“He said you should study physics. It will get you far in life.”

“Mom.”

“He said nothing. Gibberish. Meaningless drivel. Did you deliver Sweetpea to Mr. Hollywood?”

“Yes.”

Blair poured herself a glass of wine and took it with her to the couch in the living room. She sat, watching her daughter in the middle of the room.

“What did he say?” she finally asked.

“Nothing.”

“Amanda.”

She stopped working and looked at her mother. “Tell me what the doctor said.”

Blair put the wineglass down on the end table—it wobbled and the wine sloshed around in the glass. She put her hand on top of the glass, steadying it. “He said it will get worse soon.”

“What does that mean?”

“Pain, I think. We might need someone here to help out.”

“I can do everything.”

“I know you can, sweetheart. We still might need someone from hospice to help out.”

They were quiet a moment. Blair sipped her wine.

“Did you ask about other treatments? Alternative treatments.”

“No, sweetheart,” Blair said. “It’s too late for all that.”

Amanda kept her head down as if studying. But she didn’t turn a page or take a note.

“How can you concentrate with the music on?” Blair asked.

“What will I do?” Amanda asked. “If you die.”

“You’ll stay here. I asked Casey. You’ll finish school. Go to college. It’s only a year and a half away.”

“Am I allowed to? Live alone?” Amanda still didn’t look up from her sprawl of books on the floor.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. No one’s taking you to an orphanage, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t like Casey,” Amanda said.

“Casey won’t bother you. You’ll be here alone.”

They were quiet a moment, with some kind of acid rock blasting from the stereo. Blair liked the music, felt somehow lost in the wail of the guitar, the pounding of the drums. She could imagine Amanda a little less alone because the cottage would be so noisy.

Blair finished her wine, wishing she were drunk. She got up, poured herself another glass, sat back down and watched Amanda stare at her books. She looked around the living room and saw the bowl of water she had put out for Sweetpea next to the front door.

“Where does he live?” Blair asked finally.

Amanda looked up at her. She rubbed her eyes and blinked at her mother, confused.

“Mr. Hollywood,” Blair explained.

“Potrero Hill,” Amanda said.

“Nice house?”

“No big deal.”

“Did you see the wife?”

“Yeah. She’s a snoot.”

“A snoot?”

“Uppity bitch.”

“How could you tell?”

“The hair. Bleached blond and perfect. First thing in the morning. Sweetpea ran right to her. You’d think the dog would be smarter than that. Bitch left them. Someone should hold a grudge.”

“I thought you didn’t want Mr. Hollywood in our life.”

“I don’t.”

“Did he . . . you know, say anything?”

“Like: ‘Tell your mother to have a nice life’?”

“Or a nice death.”

“God, Mom.”

“No man wants to fall in love with a woman who’s dying.”

Amanda didn’t answer. She seemed to be working again—even jotted something down in her notebook.

“He didn’t say anything, huh?”

“No, Mom. He didn’t say anything.”

“I can’t believe it.”

Again Amanda buried her head in her notebook, her pen now flying across the page.

“I mean, what was that all about?” Blair asked, her voice rising. “Mr. Hollywood tornadoes into our lives, then blows on out, leaving us trampled.”

“Leaving you trampled!” Amanda shouted. She stood up in the middle of her mess on the floor, kicking books in every direction. “I don’t give a shit about Mr. Hollywood. You’re dying and all we’re supposed to worry about is Mr. Hollywood.”

She stormed past Blair and into her room, slamming the door behind her.

Blair was making dinner in the cottage the next day—a night off from work—when the phone rang. She picked it up and heard Amanda’s voice through a bad connection.

“Mom?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m going to be home late.”

“Are you at the café?”

“No. I went to the beach with some friends.”

“What friends? What happened to the job?”

“I quit. I can’t hear you. I’m on someone’s cell phone.”

Blair could hear a dog barking in the background.

“What beach? What friends?”

“I have friends. You don’t know everything,” Amanda said, and Blair remembered the fight from last night, knew that she was not yet forgiven.

“When will you be home?”

“Don’t know. Eat without me.”

“I don’t want to eat without you. How did you get to the beach?”

“One kid has a car. I gotta go, Mom. I’ll be home in an hour or something.”

“What something? Amanda!”

But she had hung up. Blair dropped the phone back onto the counter. This was what most teenage daughters did—but not hers, not Amanda, with no friends, no boyfriends, no world outside her mother, her schoolwork, her jobs, her music. Blair had never worried about her daughter because she herself had been so alone in the world, especially after the rape. And Amanda didn’t complain about the social world of school. She seemed to want to spend her time at home, with Blair. When Amanda was with Blair, her daughter was happy, easy, fun—something Blair herself had never experienced as a high school kid.
She’ll move on from me to others,
Blair had always imagined.
When she’s ready.
But now, Blair was leaving her before she was ready.

Maybe Amanda had a secret life of friends and walks with dogs on the beach after school. Maybe Blair was so suffocatingly close that her daughter needed to hide her own life from her. Maybe there were never jobs—the café didn’t even exist—instead there were boys and drugs and all the paraphernalia of adolescent life. Maybe even the straight A’s weren’t true, and Blair didn’t know a thing about her daughter.

One day Amanda had come home with a tattoo on her chest,
rove.
“What is it?” she had asked.

“A word,” Amanda had told her. “Just a word.”

Blair hadn’t pushed—she waited for Amanda to tell her more. And so the word sat there, peeking above the top of her shirt, like a constant reminder:
You don’t know everything.

Blair ate dinner alone, forcing herself to finish the pasta with pesto because the doctor said she shouldn’t lose more weight, should keep up her strength, her resistance. Resist cancer? Instead, her body seemed to have embraced it like a lover who was here to stay.

She read a book and watched it get dark. She drank a scotch, then another. When Amanda walked in, Blair looked up at her, relieved and angry, all the words she had prepared lost in her confusion.

“I’m going to my room,” Amanda said.

Blair didn’t respond. Amanda barely looked at her. She threw her jacket on the coatrack and crossed the room. Blair heard her in the kitchen, running water. Then she heard Amanda’s bedroom door open and close.

Maybe this is her way of saying good-bye,
Blair thought.

Chapter Eight

W
here are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“Where?”

“Just a walk, Luke. I need some air.”

Luke turned away from Emily and headed toward his office. He sat at his desk and stared at the computer screen.

He heard Emily follow him into the room, could sense her standing behind him. She didn’t say anything, and he waited.

“Luke,” she finally said. “We can’t live this way.”

“What way?” he asked. He didn’t turn around.

“You have to trust me. A walk is just a walk.”

“How do I know?”

“Because I’m telling you.”

“And before?”

“It’s not before. I came back to start over. Fresh.”

“I’m stuck on this, Emily,” Luke said, and swung around in his chair to face her. “I keep running through last year in my mind. Did you sneak out in the middle of the night while I was sleeping? Did you come back from his bed and crawl into ours? And because I don’t have any answers to those questions, I can’t seem to work out how we live now. Are you really going for a walk? Did you really have a meeting with a client yesterday?”

“Stop,” she said. She closed her eyes.

“And then there’s this,” Luke said, his voice quiet but insistent. “You look like the same person who walked out of my life without a word a few months ago. Except for the baby in your belly. Does that change everything?”

“Yes,” Emily said, and she finally opened her eyes. She reached out and put her fingers on Luke’s lips. “That changes everything.”

“For you,” Luke said.

Emily’s hand dropped to her side.

“When you were gone,” Luke said, his voice catching in his throat, “I wanted you back every moment.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

Luke spun his chair back toward his computer. Emily was quiet.

“I’m going to write now,” Luke said. “You go for your walk.”

“Luke,” she said.

“I need to work,” he told her. “It’s been a long time.”

He heard her leave and opened the file for the bartender story.

He heard the front door open and close.
I could go to the window and watch her,
he thought.
I could see if anyone picks her up, if anyone meets her at the corner.

But he sat there and began to work.

“If you hired me to walk the dog,” Amanda said, running ahead of Luke on the beach, then turning and walking backward while she spoke, “then why are you here? You don’t need me.”

“Sweetpea loves the beach. You couldn’t get to the beach on foot,” Luke said, digging his hands into his pockets. Next time, he would bring gloves and a hat—a cold wind whipped at them from the ocean.

“You can drop me off here and pick me up in an hour,” Amanda said. She picked up a stick, turned and hurled it toward the ocean. Sweetpea tore off and almost got it, but a wave scared her and sent her scampering back to Amanda’s side.

“Happy dog,” Luke said.

“You didn’t answer me,” Amanda said.

“Right.”

They walked for a while, Amanda a few steps ahead of Luke, as if they might not be together, out for a stroll with the dog.

“How’s your mom?” Luke asked.

“Fine,” Amanda answered quickly.

“You’re lucky,” Luke said.

“That she’s dying?”

Luke took a deep breath. Amanda didn’t look at him. “No,” he said. “That she’s your mom. She’s great.”

“How would you know?”

Luke didn’t answer. He watched Sweetpea run in circles around Amanda—when Amanda almost tripped over her, the girl laughed easily, leaned over to nuzzle the dog and skipped ahead.

“You remind me of your mother when she was in high school,” Luke called ahead to her. It was her solitude that reminded him of Blair back then—the girl was always alone and never seemed to be bothered by that. All the other girls in school walked from class to class in bands of three or four and lunched at tables crowded with friends.

Amanda walked backward again. “My mother said you didn’t really know her.”

“She was a loner. It was hard to get to know her.”

“Did you try?”

“No. I wish I had. I wasn’t smart enough then.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was different from the other girls. She didn’t play their games. She didn’t flirt or tease or hide. She was something else—something beyond the rest of us.”

“She was lonely.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She hated high school. She hated you. Said you were a golden boy.”

Luke walked quietly for a moment. Amanda found another stick, tossed it ahead for Sweetpea to retrieve.

“You have friends in high school?” Luke asked.

“No,” Amanda said, not looking at him.

“Why not?”

“They’re all awful.”

“All of them?”

“I like to be alone.”

“You’re not lonely?”

“No.”

“It’s just you and your mom alone in the world?”

Amanda turned around and looked at Luke, hard. “You want me to walk your dog,” she said, “next time, just drop us off. OK? I don’t need this.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke said.

They walked in silence for a while. The tide was out, leaving the beach wide and freshly stocked with seaweed and driftwood for Sweetpea to explore. The cliffs stretched above them, cordoned off because of recent erosion. And the sea eased calmly onto the sand, then back again, the deep blue reflecting the last of the day’s light. Luke took deep breaths of cold air, trying to clear his head. Amanda kept a few steps ahead of him.

“Did you tell your mother you’re doing this?” Luke asked after a while.

“No,” she told him.

“Why not?”

Amanda rolled her eyes at him. Luke smiled.

“She hates me,” he guessed.

“Bright guy.”

Luke tossed an abandoned tennis ball for Sweetpea.

“Did you tell your wife you’re doing this?” Amanda asked.

Luke shrugged. “Guess I forgot to mention it.”

Amanda looked pleased. Sweetpea delivered the tennis ball to her, and she picked it up, heaved it far ahead of them. Sweetpea bounded toward it. Amanda ran after her and Luke followed, close behind.

Emily got up from the table to clear dishes, leaving Luke alone with Dana. He looked at her. She was dressed elegantly for this dinner, as if they were dining at the Ritz rather than her own home. And her pregnant belly protruded proudly now, draped in a tight red silk skirt.

“You responsible for her return?” Luke asked.

Dana shook her head. “No one tells Emily what to do.”

“That’s not true, Dana. You’ve always guided her. She listens to you.”

Dana shrugged. She offered him a quick smile. “And you think I would tell her to go back to you?” The smile was teasing, flirtatious.

“Yes,” Luke said. “I think you would tell her that.”

“You’re right.”

“Why?” he asked. “I can’t even remember if we had a good marriage anymore.”

He poured more wine in his glass. He filled Dana’s glass with sparkling water.

“No one has a good marriage,” Dana said. “It’s a myth.”

“You don’t believe that.” Luke leaned back, sipping his wine, eyeing his sister-in-law. Brady was in the other room, taking a business call on a Saturday night.

“Right now, I believe that. I’m pregnant and hot and my ankles are so swollen I can’t walk.”

“You look beautiful.”

“That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

“No,” Luke said. “Maybe that’s the problem with my marriage. We look sensational, don’t we?”

“Do it differently now,” Dana said. “Start over.”

“Whose baby is it?”

“Oh, God, Luke.” Dana stood up and headed toward the kitchen.

“Dana,” Luke called out, stopping her.

“You can make yourself miserable,” she said. “Or you can get back to your life with my sister.”

“Do you know him?”

“I’m getting dessert.” She walked through the door into the kitchen.

In her place Brady appeared, his face flushed from too much wine.

“Sorry, pal,” he said, slipping into Dana’s seat. “Had to take a business call. Got a real estate deal about to break. You know.”

Luke didn’t know. He didn’t care but knew that Brady was about to tell him everything about this deal.

“Brady,” Luke said, beating him to it. “You know this guy—Gray Healy?”

“Yeah,” Brady said. “Squash buddy of mine. Whips my ass every time.”

“You set him up with my wife?”

“What?”

Dana stood in the doorway, hands on hips.

“He doesn’t know anything, Luke. Why tell the world?”

“I’m not talking about the world,” Luke said. “I’m talking about me. The husband. I’d like to know a thing or two about my wife’s lover. So, he plays killer squash. What else can you tell me, pal?”

Emily barged through the room, pushing past her sister in the doorway.

“Stop! Luke! Stop, goddamn it.”

She moved around the table to Luke’s side. She looked wild—her hair flew out behind her and tears streamed down her cheeks. Luke felt shame, felt it like a rock in his gut. He looked at her belly, round and full, taut against the fitted dress she wore. He leaned forward and pressed his face into her belly. She put her hands on his head, and he could hear her release her breath as if she had been holding it for too long. He reached his arms around her back, turned his head to the side and felt his cheek push into her belly.

“Emily,” he whispered.

She held him. Behind her, he saw Dana gesture for Brady to get off his ass and get out of there. The two of them disappeared into the kitchen.

“Take me home,” Emily whispered, her wet face on his neck.

They left without saying good-bye, without explaining or apologizing. Dana and Brady were hidden in the kitchen. They drove quietly through the streets of the city. At one point Luke reached out and took Emily’s hand—she gripped and hung on.

At home they made love for the first time since she returned. Luke was gentle, slow, careful of her belly. He tried to move her onto her side so he wouldn’t have to climb on top of her.

“No,” she said. “I want to feel you. All of you.” And she pulled him on top of her.

When he entered her, she began to guide him with her hands on his hips, urging him deeper, harder, faster.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

“You can’t hurt me,” she said, and he looked at her, surprised to see how dark she looked, how raw.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to feel you,” she said again. He had never heard her say this before. Was it something she said with Gray? Was he rougher than Luke? Was sex bigger, wilder with him?

Luke stopped moving for a moment, watching Emily.

“Don’t stop,” she gasped. “Keep going.” She sounded panicked, her voice desperate.

“Emily,” he said, and she looked at him. In a moment her eyes softened and she pressed him to her.

“Roll over,” she whispered.

He did and she climbed on top, began to move over him, back and forth, her breasts rubbing against his chest. He watched her face—she had her eyes closed, a determined look on her face. Didn’t they used to watch each other, eyes open, while making love?

He thought of Blair. No, it was Blair who surprised him by locking her gaze on him, so intense, so open, through all of their lovemaking.

If he was thinking of Blair, was she thinking of Gray?

He watched her come, watched her body arch and writhe, watched the smile spread across her face as she looked at him.

“Your turn,” she said, kissing him on the chest.

This time Luke drove Amanda into the Santa Cruz Mountains, toward his cabin, to a trail he had taken once before in the middle of the redwoods.

“Can you stay out a couple of hours?” Luke asked.

“Sure,” Amanda said.

“You want to call your mom?”

“No.”

“She won’t be waiting for you?”

“She works tonight. Besides, I’m a big girl.”

They parked the car at the trailhead and watched Sweetpea bound ahead of them to the beginning of the trail.

“Sweetpea’s been here before?” Amanda asked.

“I lived near here for a few months. After my wife left.”

“Right. The hermit act.”

Luke smiled.

Amanda ran after Sweetpea, and they disappeared into the woods. Luke grabbed a couple of water bottles and started after them.

The woods were thick and damp—Luke loved the rich smell and felt a pang of regret for leaving his cabin for life in the city. When he lived here, he walked every day, sometimes getting lost in these forests for hours. He knew he had been miserable then—drunk half the time, hungover the other half, mopey and mean. So why would he yearn for it again? He had Emily back; he was writing again. Still, he missed his woodworking, his walks. He missed something else—but he couldn’t quite name it.

He caught up with Amanda, and they walked single file along the narrow trail.

They passed a grove of redwood trees and Luke called out, “Take a look at these.”

Amanda stopped on the path and looked, leaning back, scanning up the long lengths of the trees to the sky.

“You see how these are grouped in a circle?” he asked.

She looked, nodding. The towering trees formed a circle, about five feet across, with nothing in the center. “Cool,” Amanda said. “How’d that happen?”

“It’s said that redwoods never die. If you cut one down, that trunk is gone forever and nothing grows where it stood. But out of the roots that have spread away from the base of the old tree, new trees begin to grow and become redwoods once again.”

“It’s like they’re holding hands,” Amanda said. “In a circle.”

“Some people call them cathedrals,” Luke explained. “From inside the circle of trees you can look up and see the heavens.”

He was going to step between two of the trees and show her, but Amanda was already moving on, down the path.
I’m acting like a teacher,
he thought.
Very uncool.

They walked in silence for a while, Luke close behind Amanda.

“How’s school?” he asked.

“Just terrific,” she said. “How’s marriage?”

“Dandy,” he told her.

She looked back at him. He grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes.