The Reluctant Nude (11 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Fallon reached over to dutifully manhandle her best friend’s wrist for a better look. “When did Josh ask?”

“A little over a week ago. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

Fallon sat back against her chair, giddy with fear and
near
-unconditional happiness. “Wow. So, do you know when? You know, the wedding?”

“A while. I mean, there’s that middle step missing, still.”

Fallon nodded. Rachel had already passed on a couple of invitations from Josh to move in. She wouldn’t be able to put it off much longer now.

“Wow,” Fallon said again. “When do think you’ll move out?”

“Not for a while—don’t worry.” Rachel’s spirited reassurance made it clear she understood how much Fallon was dreading this inevitability. “I told him I need plenty of time for us to figure out the house. You know, to sell it or for you to find a renter you like or…”

“Wow. Well, that is
awesome
. That’s the awesomest thing I’ve heard in months. Lunch is on me, then.”

“No, this is your early birthday lunch, Madam Unpaid Leave of Absence. I insist.” A deep yawn eclipsed Rachel’s smile. The adrenaline of the announcement seemed to have tipped her over the edge into exhaustion. “Plus, just wait until you’re a maid of honor. I need to get busy kissing your ass, pronto.”

“Yeah. Wow.” Fallon fell silent. She tried to study the menu but her panic blurred the words. She’d lived with Rachel for nearly four years now, the longest she’d ever lived in any one place, ever in her life. She felt like her world was being tipped upside-down like a snow globe and shaken.

Being here in the calm and quiet of Nova Scotia made her dread the thought of returning to New York, now that the one thing that made the chaos of living there bearable was going away. Having to drive in that hateful traffic, to fight day in and day out with assholes like Donald Forrester and lose those battles more often than not…

Her heart ached suddenly. It ached in advance, for how she’d miss this place once she left. Homesickness, in reverse. Withdrawal.

Max glanced at the clock on his oven and frowned. Five forty. Who would be ringing his bell at five forty?

He found Fallon on his doorstep, looking pale.

“Hello. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.” He held the door open but she didn’t come in.

“Hey. I was hoping I could borrow your beach…?” She smiled halfheartedly.

“Of course. Where is your friend?”

“Asleep. She drove all night to get here and she’s down for the count now, back at my cottage.”

“Well, please, use my beach. Would you like a towel or a blanket?”

“Yeah, sure. That’d be good.” She nodded in a way that told Max she wasn’t far from tears.

“Come in. I’ll find you something.” He closed the door behind them and watched her from the corner of his eye as he dug an old blanket out of a cupboard. He’d never seen her look this fragile before.

“Can you give me a couple of minutes?” he asked.

“For what?”

“You’ll see.” He smiled at her, keeping his flirtation safely in check.

“I’m not really in the mood for guessing games tonight.”

“Sorry, but this is the price of using of my beach.”

She nodded, seeming to resign herself to him.

“Doesn’t your cottage have a beach?” He pulled a saucepan from the fridge and flipped a burner on beneath it.

“No, just a dock. No sand.”

“Well, you are welcome to all the sand you find out there.”

“Thanks.”

A few minutes later Max filled a Thermos with chowder and grabbed a camp lantern from a shelf, tossing the blanket to Fallon. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” she said, hesitating. “I’m sorry. I meant I wanted to be alone.”

“I know. But I’ll walk you down.” He nodded in the direction of the back door.

“It’s still light out. I’ll be okay.”

“Price of admission. Come on.”

Fallon seemed fresh out of resistance. She exited and Max closed the door behind them.

“So,” he said as they kicked their way through the long, overgrown lawn. “Can I ask why you seem so sad?”

She shrugged. “I got some bad news.”

“Ah.” They descended the steps to the little strip of his so-called beachfront property. “Hold this. It’s your supper.” He handed her the Thermos and unfurled the blanket.

Fallon sat, clutching the Thermos like a talisman, staring off over the water, the tide half out.

“May I sit down?” Max asked.

She turned to stare up at him, eyes wide and tired. “Fine.”

He gave her a couple feet as a buffer and reclined against the lumpy ground. “Did you lose someone?” he asked softly.

“Oh, no. No one’s died. It’s nothing that bad. I lied, actually. It’s good news. It’s
really
good news… I just wasn’t ready for it.”

“Pregnancy?”

“No—oh, God no. Rachel got engaged.”

“Ah.”

Fallon unscrewed the cap and poured herself some chowder. She was quiet for a long time. “This is really good,” she murmured.

“I used some of your cream. Sorry.”

He caught her smirk with one side of her mouth, looking as if she didn’t want to.

“Do you not like this man she is marrying?” he asked.

“No, Josh is great. He’s probably the only guy on the planet who can keep up with her.”

“So you are sad because you are losing your housemate?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. It is hard to lose someone, once you grow accustomed.” He turned his head to study her, thinking about the day when hers wouldn’t be the first voice to greet him in the morning.

“It’s more than that. She’s like my family. But I’ll be okay. I just feel…lost, I guess. I’m so sick of wandering around, you know?”

“You move a lot?”

“Yeah, a hell of a lot.” She cleared her throat. “It was just nice, being in one place for that long. I’ll have to find a renter I guess, or sell the place. It’s not the most amazing house ever. It’s okay. But now I feel like, why even bother staying in Metro New York? It used to mean I was close to my Aunt Gloria, but she passed away this year. Now Rachel. I don’t feel like I have the energy to do this anymore. To do
anything
.”

“This Aunt Gloria—she’s the one you used to watch old movies with?”

Fallon nodded.

“Tell me about her.”

She hesitated a long time before she spoke. “I went to stay with her when I was fifteen, until I finished high school. In a big old house in Connecticut, just a short drive from the coast. It was really pretty. Sort of idyllic. A huge back lawn and a porch and this big granite cliff rising all along the edge of the property, so you felt you were in a little protected kingdom.”

“That sounds very nice.”

Fallon’s face tensed and her lips quivered until she pursed them.

Max chose to let this topic slide. “How long do you have to decide what you want?”

“At least six months.”

“You know,” he said, “you can go home, if you want. You can go home with your friend and deal with all these things. I was only kidding about you being my prisoner.”

She nodded. “Thank you, I know. But this is important too. And the longer this takes, the longer I’m not bringing home a paycheck. It’s too messy. Plus…it’s good, my being stuck here. I should be thinking about this stuff now while it’s quiet and I’m not working. Don’t worry about it.”

Max clasped his hands over his ribs and stared into the darkening sky. “What do you think it is you want?”

“Like, in my life? I’m not sure. Is anyone ever sure of that?”

“They can be. But then sometimes they change their minds.”

“Well,” Fallon said with a sigh. “I envy you. You seem to know. And you’re able to just
have
it. You do whatever you like, in a beautiful place, in a house that you own, and you don’t have to answer to anyone.”

“I have freedom, that is true… But that’s not everything. Sometimes I feel very angry about my life, actually.”

“Oh.” She ate a bit more. “What’s wrong with your life? I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who lives as…uniquely as you do. Why are you angry?”

“Sometimes I feel like…I was unconscious. For over a decade. Like a coma. Like I fell asleep when I was twelve and woke up in this other life that didn’t belong to me. I feel a bit cheated, if I’m honest.”
Incensed
was a more accurate word, but Max didn’t want to come off too self-pitiful.

She nodded. “It sounded like it was really chaotic.”

“Yes. This life I have now, I
am
grateful for it. And I think I earned it too… Did you know, after my mother died and I was plucked out of my childhood home and taken away to London, I was called a visionary.”

“Oh?” She sounded cautious.

“Also while I was there I was given cocaine and Ecstasy, and I lost my virginity and stopped believing in God, all in one year.”

“Whoa. You were busy.”

“And do you know what else happened that year?” he asked, looking over at her.

Fallon met his eyes. “No. What?”

“I turned fourteen.”

“Oh, God.”

“I won’t even bother telling you how New York went. So now I need everything to be simple. And quiet. And just
less
. If I ever have a family someday, I will be one of those obnoxious, overprotective parents who do not want their child to ever lose its innocence.” He smiled, amused by this, charmed by thoughts of such extraordinary normality, of family.

“You want children?” Fallon asked, clearly surprised.

“I would. Very much. But it’s hard for me to relate to people sometimes, in those normal ways. I spent my formative years high on praise and success and drugs and all those endless changes. I never did the normal things normal people do between twelve and twenty-five. I suspect I’m quite maladjusted,” he added, grinning at her.

“I feel sort of stupid now. Being upset about my roommate moving out.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“No, of course not. But you know…I dunno. It’s good to hear that, I guess.”

“Lie down with me,” Max said.

She surprised him by replacing the cap on the Thermos and complying. She lay down facing him, tucking her knees into her chest and pressing her forehead into his shoulder. He unclasped his hands and stroked her upper arm through her jacket.

“It’s so quiet here,” she mumbled.

“I know. That’s part of why I love it. You know, you should cry, if you want to.”

She shook her head against him.

“All right.”

“I have to get back to my cottage tonight,” she said.

“I won’t keep you.”

“Maybe in a little bit.” She yawned. “After the stars come out. When it gets too cold.”

Max gazed blankly into the darkening sky, running his palm up and down her arm. He wondered if she had really come for the beach. Probably. He took his hand away, tucking it politely below its mate. He cleared his throat and listened to the ocean, tried to keep from wondering again about the man who’d sent this woman to him.

Chapter Eight

“Tonight,” Max said, putting away the morning’s coffee cups.

Fallon shed her clothes as though it were nothing, then marveled anew at how much she’d changed since first arriving here. “What about tonight?”

“It is your birthday.”

“It is indeed,” she confirmed, returning the mischievous smirk that curled his lips. “What about it?”

“Do you have plans tonight?”

She shook her head.

“I thought maybe you would be willing to sit for a couple of extra hours, stick around until suppertime? I would like to take you out. My treat. Thirty is such a nice, round number.”

“I don’t really want to make a big deal about it,” she said, all at once shy.

“I won’t make a big deal. No cake. No singing.” He crossed his heart and it seemed sincere.

In the two weeks since Rachel had come to visit, things between her and Max had cooled back down to manageable levels, leaving Fallon both relieved and disappointed.

She shrugged. “Okay.”

Smiling triumphantly, he began setting up the materials for the day. He wheeled the steadily winnowing hunk of white marble over from the corner and fetched a spray bottle and his tools, strapped on a pair of safety goggles. He wrapped the pads of his hands and his wrists in cotton bandaging, like a boxer. Apparently the chiseling was murder on his joints. He tossed Fallon a particle mask for when the dust began to bother her. Max always wore one when he worked and Fallon thought it made him look like a postapocalyptic surgeon.

“I hope you aren’t sculpting me with this thing,” she said, hanging it around her neck.

He grinned. “You will have to wait and see.”

Wait and see. A philosophy Fallon had been getting all too closely acquainted with since Rachel’s visit. She’d spent a few days in a state of panic over the inevitable upheaval of her life back home, followed by a week of lower level anxiety. In the past few days she’d reached a state of grim but steely acceptance. She hated not knowing how things would turn out, but she’d be okay. Many more disruptive changes had rocked her life and she’d lived through those… It still felt like grief, though. After an entire childhood spent moving around, Fallon had grown very attached to her routines and the stability of her living situation.

She took her seat on the worktable and found her pose. Funny how all of this had become normal to her. It was the strangest episode of her life, yet today felt like any other day. She’d adjusted to Max, to her own nudity, to this strange daily schedule. She could adjust to a new housemate or a new apartment just as capably.

Max strode to his dust-covered stereo and punched some buttons, Fallon’s CDs whirring and clicking in the changer. If he’d prefer not to be working to the sounds of PJ Harvey’s mournful wailing, he was kind enough to hide it. It was nice having her music here, a taste of the familiar making her feel welcome, as if she belonged. She turned the thought over in her head as she watched Max setting up. She most certainly didn’t belong here, but now and then she nearly wished she might, somehow.

“It is quitting time,” Max announced at five sharp, pulling his mask down around his neck and unbuckling his tool belt. He strode to the stereo and switched off Fallon’s Simon and Garfunkel CD. “Let me get cleaned up. That was a long session.”

Fallon dressed and strolled outside to sit at the picnic table with a newspaper while he bathed. When he emerged twenty minutes later, he was dressed up. Well, for Max. He had on dust-free gray pinstriped slacks and an untucked white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. As he approached he propped a vintage-looking tweed fedora on his head, the picture of offbeat, roguish style, ready for a gallery opening. He sat beside her, smelling like bergamot. Smelling like temptation.

“Ready?”

She nodded. “Where are we going?”

“Just to supper.”

“You’re all dressed up. Kind of. And you smell really good.”

He smiled and stared off toward the ocean. When he rose she followed him inside to grab her tote. He locked the studio behind them and they walked in silence along the dirt road.

“What’s in there?” Fallon asked after a little while, pointing to the paper grocery bag swinging from his hand.

“All in good time.”

“Did you get me a present?” The idea intrigued her.

Max just smirked, eyes on the horizon.

The edge of the town came into view as the sun began to fade. Max stopped by a stand of pines and opened the bag, drew out a handkerchief and a small parcel and tossed the latter to Fallon. It was fabric—pale, green-gray silk, folded and tied with a white ribbon. Fallon pulled the bow loose and unfurled a gown, the most exquisite item of clothing she’d ever touched.

“Oh my God.” She studied it for a minute. When she looked up she found Max crouching, spit-shining his shoes with the handkerchief. The formerly clay-splattered items transformed into a very fine pair of hand-tooled black dress shoes.

He glanced up from his task. “Animal product,” he said with a nod to the silk. “But I hope you’ll make an exception. Go on.” He pointed to the woods.

“What?”

“Put the dress on.”

Fallon blushed. “Right here?”

“Go behind the trees.” He stood and began tucking his dress shirt into his pants.

Fallon glanced back and forth between Max and the woods, uncertain.

“No one will see.” He came over and put a hand on the small of her back, steering her in the right direction.

“It might not even be the right size,” Fallon said, but she acquiesced. Once hidden in the shadows she was shocked to discover how perfectly the dress fit. She’d never have picked this out for herself—yet more evidence that Max knew her body better than she did. Her bra showed behind the tiny spaghetti straps and deep neckline.

“Is it all right?” she asked nervously, leaving the cover of the woods. “My bra and shoes look ridiculous.” She hiked up the hem to show him her yellow Keds.

Max stared at her for a long moment before reaching into the bag a final time. He withdrew a pair of beaded silver flats and set them before her on the grass. A perfect fit, also, and Fallon could tell from the soft calfskin linings alone that these shoes probably cost as much as her monthly mortgage payment. She stared at them, bewildered.

Max broke into a wide grin. He reached around to slide the elastic from her ponytail, letting the curls bounce down to her shoulders. “Now you’re ready. Happy birthday.”

“Well. Thanks. This is…unexpected. I could have changed back at the studio, you know.”

“Where’s the surprise in that?” He took her clothes and shoes and put them in the bag, then offered an arm.

“Wait. I’m so close to looking the part, I may as well.” She reached behind and disentangled herself from her bra. She tucked it into Max’s bag and accepted his proffered arm, holding his strong biceps as they walked.

“Where did you get these things? And how did you know my shoe size?” she asked, not sure what else to say, or exactly how to interpret these gifts or this closeness.

He shrugged.

“Where are we going for dinner?” Fallon failed to think of any restaurant in Pettiplaise that warranted this kind of dress code. Moreover, every meal she’d eaten at the studio had been second-to-none. She couldn’t imagine what this man’s standards for actual
dining
might be.

“A very fine establishment,” he said evasively.

Five minutes later they arrived at one of the town’s many shabby fish joints, a bilingual sign in the window boasting five-dollar lobster rolls and draught beer specials. Max held the door for her, and she found them a booth with a table covered in red and white gingham vinyl. A candle flickered inside a cheap green glass holder and Maritime fiddle music drifted from the speakers. Tourist season was long over and they were the only patrons.

Fallon caught Max’s eyes as he sat down opposite her and she smirked. “Cute.”

He returned the smile. “This seemed more your speed than some snobby place. Not that we have many to choose from.”

“It is,” she said, registering her relief. “But the outfit’s a bit much, isn’t it? What if I get ketchup on it?” She glanced anxiously down at the silk.

“The world will keep turning.” He looked up to the menu posted behind the order counter. “What do you think?”

She scanned the fare. “I’d like…haddock and chips?”

“Very good.”

He went to place their orders and she heard him ask the clerk something in incomprehensible Acadian French, something involving the words for “our wine” and “friend” and “birthday”. Fallon felt an odd glow in her solar plexus at this new title. She smoothed the silk over her legs and tried her best to dismiss her shyness.

When Max returned he was carrying a pair of disposable plastic cups. He conjured a bottle of wine and a corkscrew from his shopping bag.

“I trust this is still potable.” He twisted the handle.

“How old is it?”

“This,” he said as the cork eased out with a faint pop, “would also have been turning thirty this year.”

Fallon’s eyebrows shot up toward the ceiling. “Oh my.”

He poured two cups, licking an errant drip as it slipped down the bottle’s neck then replacing the cork. He snapped his eyes to hers and slid a cup to her elbow. “What would you like to toast to?”

“To the first time I’ve had wine worth more than my car?” she suggested, still dumbfounded. She pulled the bottle close and studied the jaundiced label. It bore the designation
Pauillac, Bordeaux
and, indeed, the year Fallon was born.

“How about we toast to your birthday, instead?”

“Sure. Fine.” She held out her cup and Max tapped it inaudibly with his.

“Joyeux anniversaire,”
he said and took a sip.

Fallon followed suit. The wine stung her tongue, dry and tart but unmistakably good. She tried to savor it, to record and preserve the memory of every drop. “This is by far the oldest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Try to keep it quiet,” Max said. “There are plenty of people who would have me drawn and quartered for opening this before the turn of the next century.” He smiled and took another sip. Their order was called, and he brought their steaming aluminum carryout trays back to the booth.

They spoke very little as they ate which suited Fallon just fine—he’d left her thoroughly speechless, anyhow. Across the table, dressed up and dust-free and treating her as a friend and not a scientific specimen, Fallon felt herself falling for Max a little bit. Perhaps a lot. As usual, she blamed the alcohol.

After they finished their dinners and tossed the trays, Max snatched the plastic cups off the table and they began the walk back to the studio. Overhead the sky had grown dusky and dark with rain clouds and the approaching night.

“Here,” Max said, and Fallon turned to find him holding out a half-filled cup for her.

“Thanks.”

“Happy birthday.”

She smiled and looked away. “You sure like birthdays.”

“I like
you
,” he said, point-blank.

“Oh.” She took a swallow to buy herself time. “Is this…is this a date?” she asked, as the thought occurred to her, perhaps naively, for the first time.

He shrugged. “This is whatever it is.”

Fat raindrops began to fall as a crisp breeze ruffled the grass on either side of the road. Fallon touched the silk at her waist. “I hope this doesn’t ruin the dress.” As she said it the drops came faster.

When she looked over at Max, he just grinned and took a drink, holding her gaze. Rain landed in the cups, darkened his white shirt and made Fallon’s dress cling to her legs. She gathered the skirt into a ball at her thigh to keep from tripping.

“I’m afraid I’m wrecking your shoes,” she said as the road turned mucky.

“They’re your shoes.” He took her by the elbow as the sky opened up, steering them under a tree to wait out the worst of it. Beneath the canopy he tipped his hat to sluice the water from the brim, then refreshed their cups. He stared at her with a very-hard-to-read expression.

“What?” Her heart sped in response to the intensity now blazing in his eyes.

Max cleared his throat. “You told me before never to kiss you ever again. I’m waiting now for you to tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

Ah ha.

“You can kiss me,” she said with a slow nod, her voice turning airy, eyes fixed on his lips.

He set the cups and bag on the grass and came close, so close his chest brushed Fallon’s breasts. He tipped his hat to the back of his head and kissed her. His eyes shut before hers did, and his mouth burned hot and wet and tasted of very, very fine wine. She felt his thumbs pressing into her cheeks, his rough fingertips cradling her jaw, and she parted her lips to invite a deeper exploration. He angled his mouth as his tongue slid to dance with hers, stoking the fire. His possessive hands held her head, making it seem as though he were consuming her, and each time they came up for air she wanted more. She wanted him deeper, and rougher, and more raw. She circled her arms around his neck, surrendering to whatever it was he had in mind for this evening.

Fallon climbed the spiral stairs, heart pounding so hard she feared she’d faint and topple over backward and break her neck. She sat nervously at the edge of Max’s bed in her damp dress, stroking her palm across the dark red comforter, waiting. It smelled so deeply of him here in this space. Rain hammered the skylight above the bed and she lay back to take it in. Soon the faint tremors of Max mounting the steps arrived, jolting Fallon’s nerves, making her feel more drunk than she might already be. She closed her eyes, keeping them shut even as the mattress sank under his weight. Max’s rough fingers played along the length of her bare arm.

“Fallon,” he said softly.

She opened her eyes and stared up at him. He’d brought a fat beeswax candle and set it on the nightstand.

“Yeah?”

“Would you be doing this if you hadn’t had two glasses of very strong wine?”

“No,” she said, thinking about it. “But I’d wish I was.”

“I see.”

“Would you?”

“I would be doing this even if the studio was burning down around us,” he said.