Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I wake to creaking floorboards and the smell of instant coffee. I crack my eyes open and see Bradley standing at the camp stove. My mouth is dry, my head is throbbing, and I need to pee—but I’m not yet ready to face him. Not until I’ve processed what happened.
I slept with my boss. I slept with a married man. I slept with the husband of a person who plots murders for a living and who threatened to kill anyone who did what I just did.
I feel ashamed and confused. Why is he still here? He should have slunk out as soon as we were done. He cheated on his wife, after all. And if he’s not the type to feel shame, then I’m sure to be just another notch on his belt.
“Morning, sunshine.”
Damn. I wonder if I can find a mirror before Bradley sees me. “I’m still asleep.”
“Early bird gets the worm.” He’s wearing a towel and nothing else. I figure his clothes are still soaked from last night.
“I think I already got the worm,” I say, wiping my eyes and quickly running my hands through my hair.
“Worm!” He takes two steps, then jumps onto the bed, straddling me. The towel falls to the side. “More like a python. Anaconda, maybe.”
“I think worm is accurate.” I give him a push, but he doesn’t move. “Bradley, we need to talk.”
“My worm doesn’t like the sound of that.”
I roll my eyes, then nod to the kitchen. “Your water is boiling.”
“That’s quite the metaphor.”
“No, dummy. It’s literally boiling.” I give him another push, and this time he rolls off me. “Last night was a mistake. We were drunk.”
“I disagree.” He holds up a canister of coffee. “How do you like it?”
“I take it black.”
“Black instant coffee? I thought you were from the city. Don’t you want a double shot Americano with a splash of oat?”
“Are you calling me bougie, English professor?”
His smile fades for a second. Shit—I completely forgot about his losing tenure. “Hey, I’m the same. But unfortunately, I can’t find the espresso machine in here.” While he pours the boiling water into two mugs, I look around for my clothes.
“Can you pass me my bag?”
“Spoil sport.”
“I’m actually naked here.”
“Same. That’s just the way I like it.”
“Bradley!”
He grabs the bag from the floor and tosses it on the bed beside me. “As long as you promise to take it off again soon.”
“Turn around.”
“Are you kidding? I saw it all last night.”
“That was different. I was drunk. Now turn around!” This time, he does what I ask. I quickly change into a skirt and hoodie. “You can look.”
He hands me a cup of tar-black coffee, takes a blanket from the bed, and heads out to the veranda. My wine glass from the night before is lying beside my chair, but the shards from his smashed glass are gone. I sit next to him as he wraps the blanket around his bare shoulders.
“Don’t you regret anything?” I ask.
“Not at all.”
“Not even a little?
“I don’t regret anything about last night. It was the best night I’ve had in years.”
“I suppose that was your mating dance. You’re like the blue-footed booby.”
“That doesn’t sound very flattering.”
“A bird of paradise, maybe?”
I sip the coffee—unlike the first morning here, I don’t wince with disgust. It’s funny how quickly I’ve become used to this place, which has no electricity, no hot water, and none of the comforts I thought I needed.
People can get used to anything, I guess.
Even the strangest events can become perfectly normal.
“It can’t happen again,” I say. “I mean it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Well, I do. It’s not right. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I wasn’t raised to go around having affairs with married men. Besides, I’ve just come out of something serious. I don’t want to get in the middle of anything.”
“You’re not—”
“I don’t want you to try to convince me, OK? We need to forget it ever happened.”
We sit in silence, and I suddenly feel the full implication of what we’ve done. My time at Pine Ridge is over.
“Brie, what am I going to do with my life?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Please don’t.” He stands up and tosses his coffee into the garden. “You know, college kids always ask my advice about their lives. About grad school. About what careers to go into. Gap years. Travel. Even their love lives! What a joke.”
“They must really trust you.”
“It’s all a great magic trick. You stand in front of the classroom, and everyone assumes you must belong there, that you must be smarter than them and have it all figured out.
But what on earth have I figured out? I’ve read Kant in German.
I’ve read every obscure English poet there is.
I’ve read the Aeneid in Latin, for Christ’s sake. But what do I know about how to live?”
“As much as anyone else,” I say. “Truth and beauty. You must know a bit about that.”
He turns to me, surprised, almost offended, like an actor who finished a monologue to complete and utter silence.
“Your life is great,” I continue. “You live in a beautiful house. Your wife is hot and interesting. You got to teach poetry for a job for nearly twenty years. You work hard, but so does everyone else, and most of them are paid a lot less for doing so. People miss out on promotions every day and have to go back to their cubicles. You get to be a teacher! What an absolute goddamn privilege.”
He sits down and wraps the blanket around his shoulders again. He doesn’t speak for a moment, and I wonder if I’ve offended him. I wouldn’t be surprised. The guy just suffered the greatest disappointment of his life, and I’m effectively telling him to suck eggs.
“And you got to have sex with me,” I add. “Probably the greatest privilege known to man.”
He cracks a smile, but his expression quickly turns serious again. “You’re an extraordinary person. Really.”
“And you give too many compliments.”
“I mean them all. But tell me, what would you do if you were me?”
The first thing that comes to mind is get a divorce, but I hold my tongue. Who am I to tell Bradley about his life? I feel like I’m walking into a dark field littered with bear traps. How long before I lose a limb?
“Take a break,” I say eventually. “Take some time to figure it all out.”
“Where would I go?”
“Australia,” I say, without thinking. “It’s where my mom was born.”
“And your dad?”
“He was American, but that’s all I know. He left when I was a baby.”
“Let’s say my Australian visa takes a while to process. Where in this country would you go?”
I tell him about the San Juan Islands, just below the Canadian border. It’s lush, wild, and full of birds. I’ve been dreaming about visiting for years.
“Maybe we could go together,” he says, after I finish talking.
Here we go. Another inch, and the jaws of the trap will snap across my ankle.
“In another life.”
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“Do you have amnesia? We just talked about this. You’re married.”
“I’m getting divorced. I told you last night.”
He says this earth-shattering fact as if he were commenting on the weather. I study his expression and decide that he’s being serious.
“We were drunk last night. I’m not going to hold you to that.”
“I wasn’t drunk.”
“I’ve told you, I’m not getting involved.”
“And I told you, my wife’s cheating on me, Brie. That means what we did isn’t wrong. She already violated our marriage.” He stands up and holds out his hand. The last time he did that, I ended up naked in the rain. “But I do think you’re special. And I do want to see where this goes.”
I look at his hand and shake my head. No—I’m not ready to lose a limb. Not today.
“I’m leaving.” As soon as I say it, it seems obvious.
Of course I have to leave. I’ve done everything wrong.
I try to mentally calculate how far I can drive on a full tank of gas.
Out of the state, at least. “I’m not going to lie.
I’m obviously attracted to you, and if you were single and it wasn’t so messy, I might be interested. But this isn’t me.”
“Don’t leave.”
“You seriously want me to live under the same roof as your wife?”
“Not the same roof. And yes. I don’t want you to lose your job because of me. She’ll never find out.”
“I’m not a reckless person, Bradley. I’ve seen what happens to reckless people where I come from. You don’t understand how hard I had to work just to be a normal college graduate.”
“I’m not offering you ketamine. Just don’t leave. We can go back to normal. As friends.” He extends his hand. The familiar twinkle of irony is gone. He seems terribly, intensely sincere. “Please don’t go. I’ll feel enormously guilty.”
It’s a horrible idea. Grace has already warned me not to touch her husband. The safest bet would be to run while I’m still unharmed. But then, Bradley said she was prone to drama. She’s a writer, after all. And the thought of leaving this place with nothing fills me with dread.
If I stay, what’s the worst that can happen?
“Fine,” I say, taking his hand. “But you need to make me a proper coffee.”
“OK, friend. It’s a deal.”