Chapter 26
“When you said breakfast, I figured you meant before your swim.” The voice comes from the kitchen as Stewart steps in from the garage. I’m behind him in my Audrey Hepburn dress because I brought all the clothes I like to Whitfield, and there was nothing I wanted to change into.
“I’m sorry, Helena,” Stewart says. “This is my girlfriend, Dolly.” The way he says it now makes it sound true. Or maybe he’s always said it this way, and now it just feels true.
“Hello,” I say. Helena is Stewart’s height and German and annoyed.
“Nice to meet you,” she says.
“We were out late and ended up staying at her place,” Stewart says. “I should have texted.”
“It’s fine,” she says. It’s not. “I have berries and breads for you in the sunroom. I’ll bring coffee and start your eggs. Miss, how do you like your eggs?”
“Whatever’s easiest, thank you,” I say.
Stewart hangs his suit jacket on the back of a leather barstool and rolls up his sleeves.
“That is not an answer,” he says. “First of all, she prefers tea, if you have it. Milk and honey. And, Dolly, you have here the greatest breakfast chef in America. Don’t tell Gladys.
” Helena smiles for the first time. “You should have your eggs how you like them.” He takes my hand and smiles at me.
“Okay, well, scrambled?” I say.
Helena nods. “Medium? Hard?”
“Medium, please.”
“I’ll start them. I’ve brought your bags to Stewart’s room, if you’d like to change,” she says.
“Thanks, we’ll do that,” he says. He takes my hand and leads me out of the kitchen and down the long hall to the front stairs.
He stops and kisses me at the bottom of the stairs.
“I really love having you here.” I kiss him again and don’t say how much I love being here or anywhere with him.
Being able to reach out and touch him anytime I want.
I follow him upstairs. We arrive at a wide landing that leads to two hallways.
We turn left and he opens the last door to a room with a wall of windows that are open to his back garden.
There’s a king-sized bed upholstered in heavy gray silk and dressed in puffy gray linens.
I take off my shoes to feel the thick white rug beneath my feet.
“Maybe you should keep me here,” I say. He pulls me close and unzips my dress. It falls to the floor and I climb onto his bed. We are terribly late for breakfast.
I don’t meet Helena’s eyes when we finally emerge.
I’m in jeans, sneakers, and my favorite Red Sox T-shirt, and I have combed my hair back into submission.
The sunroom is just off the kitchen, with two walls of glass looking directly into the garden.
Stewart has a Japanese maple that Christopher would adore and a rainbow of blooming flowers, including the lilies I saw in the front hall.
He takes a seat at the little table next to me so we can both see the garden.
Helena brings our eggs. They’re still hot, which makes me think she was waiting for us to finish doing what we were doing up there. I thank her, still not meeting her eyes.
“I need to check in. I think they thought I’d be back by now.” It’s eleven thirty and I’m not on the schedule to work. Gus knew I wouldn’t be around for breakfast.
“I have calls at two and work to do before,” Stewart says. “Would you be okay with staying here until three?”
I’d be okay staying here forever. “Sure,” I say, and text my dad and Gus together. Me: Off to a slow start here, but I did grab your sweatshirt from home. Probably won’t be back till around four thirty
We spend the day in his den. Stewart sits in an armchair with his laptop, and I lie on the deep black sofa.
It’s so strange not to have anything to cook or clean up, nowhere to be.
I find myself researching commercial-sized ovens for my imaginary bakery at the fish house.
I look up “best practices for shipping raw fish” and the cost of take-out crabcakes in different parts of the country.
I watch him concentrate behind his horn-rimmed glasses.
He calls Smithers several times to make changes to a document.
He catches me watching him and smiles. “Don’t make me come over there,” he says, and I blush.
If I could make him come over here, I would.
I want the weight of him on me, I want his mouth on my neck.
I want him to say everything again, about how close he wants to be.
I want to wake up with him a million tomorrows in a row.
He’s different when he’s on his call. He’s firm but accommodating, like he’s in charge but he’s happy to let the other party think they are.
I wonder if that’s what’s happening here between us, his letting me think he’d follow me anywhere.
But then he looks up at me midsentence and seems so happy to see I’m still there that I believe him.
As soon as the call is over, he is on top of me on the couch. “That took forever,” he says, and kisses me.
“It did,” I say, relieved to have him back.
Helena is in the doorway. “Sorry, I didn’t—” She stops.
Stewart rolls off me but keeps me in his arms. “It’s fine,” he says. “What’s up?”
“I’m going shopping and was wondering if you’re here for dinner.” She’s taking us in, and her surprise is giving way to a small smile. It’s the way Henry looked at our entwined hands last night, like it was a very pleasant shock.
“We have to head back,” he says. “Probably soon.”
“Thank you very much for breakfast,” I say.
“My pleasure,” she says. “I will see you next time.”
His arm is around me on the car ride from the Whitfield heliport.
I rest my head on his shoulder, and Gus’s Red Sox sweatshirt acts as a blanket over our laps.
When I look up at him, he’s already looking at me.
I don’t know what his look is telling me, but I smile anyway, because I loved last night.
I will recount this all to Naomi today and probably to Kim and Layla over drinks and darts in the fall.
But part of me really wants to call Patsy and tell her that for one night I was the princess.
I was beautiful with the prince, and I am bedazzled from the inside out.
I walk into the house at four fifteen, and my dad is at the kitchen table with his adding machine and a bunch of receipts.
“You’re home,” I say. “Who’s closing the store?”
“I let Rikki do it. Slow day and I brought the till home. Anything you want to talk about?”
“No, why?”
“I heard a car pull up and then feet on the front steps, and then it took you so long to open the door that I thought maybe squirrels got you.”
I smile at him in his old fish house T-shirt and jeans, drinking a mug of Ovaltine. “Just saying goodbye,” I say, and turn my swollen lips away.
“Dolly,” he says.
“I’m almost forty, Dad.”
“He seems like a good man.” He looks away, as if the point he’s trying to make might be taped to the refrigerator. “But Stewart Whitfield, honey? Seems like an awfully big catch.”
I understand his worry. I’d be worried for me too, if I was my father.
And also if I was a man whose wife left because she was out hunting for a bigger, fancier life.
He’s never said so, but I’ve always suspected he was worried we might turn out to be like her, embracing her fascination with all things shiny and unattainable. Happiness just out of our grasp.
“It’s just fun, Dad. And he’s a very nice man.
” I walk over and kiss the top of his head.
It is fun, but it’s not just fun. It’s soulful and romantic and explosive between us.
That’s why it took us thirty minutes to say goodbye.
I’m in this now, but I don’t need to make that my dad’s problem. “So I’m on Cook House tonight?”
“Sure,” he says. “That’d be great.”
Before I change my clothes or figure out what I’m making for dinner, I go over to Whitfield Tees. The store is packed and Naomi’s ringing people up behind the counter.
When she sees me in the doorway, she says, “Oh my.”
“Yep,” I say. “Three times.”
“Okay, Cara,” she calls to her teenage helper, who’s refolding T-shirts on the center display table.
“You’re in charge.” She hands her the credit card reader, likely for the first time.
“You’ll figure it out. I need to help my friend here in the dressing room.
” She grabs a handful of bathing suits from the toddler rack and leads me behind the red curtain.
“Spill! It! Start with the sheets. Did you get a sense for the thread count?”
“We were at my place. And then his.” I can’t fight the smile that’s taking over my face. “They were quite nice, actually.”
Naomi is scrunching up her face like she’s trying to hold in a scream.
“But the sheets aren’t the point,” I say.
“It was amazing. The sex but also the whole night and the next day. He made me tea and remembered honey. And I don’t know who I am right now.
I’ve jumped off a cliff. I am a person who never even wanted to go to the mountains, never even liked standing near the safety rope to look down at the view.
But now I’ve gone all the way up and I’ve hurled myself off and I’m free-falling.
It feels good but the landing’s going to be tough. ”
Naomi is nodding at me slowly. “To be clear, this mountain is near the Comfort Inn? And you’ve just hung your stolen Mona Lisa in the bathroom there?” She starts laughing. “I’m not totally sure metaphors are your thing now that you’re a three-time sex champion.”
I bury my face in my hands. “You wanted me to have fun.” I look up at her and she does not look as concerned as she should be. “And I did have fun. The boat and the yacht club. But this was something else, it was intense. Like we were perfect together.”
Naomi lifts her hands in surrender. “Dolly, this could go a lot of ways. You could end up Mrs. Freakin’ Whitfield with a diamond the size of a pizza on your hand and a funny walk from having sex three times a day forever.
Or, worst-case scenario, this is nursing home talk.
When we’re old, we can sit in a couple of rockers and relive this summer every single day until one of us drops dead in a bowl of soup. ”
“You do paint a lovely picture,” I say. I go on to tell her about the helicopter and the telescope and the ravioli and the way he asked me what I wanted and how strange it was to tell him.
That night I climb into bed listening to the frogs and the crickets and imagining that I hear Stewart making his way through the bushes.
Every distant car is his, as I sit and wait for him to appear at the screen door.
I press my hands together and conjure the feeling of his holding my hand in the car, his fingers trailing my neck.
I picture him on our porch in broad daylight, pulling me toward him with his hands on my hips, thumbs pressed lightly on my hipbones like he could break me if he wanted to, but won’t.
I lie back on my bed and close my eyes and try to picture him with open windows, thinking about me lying here. My phone dings.
Stewart: That was a terrible idea
Me: Which part?
Stewart: Saying goodbye. Are you busy? I’m in your driveway
I turn into my pillow to hide my smile from myself. It doesn’t work; I am in a full-body smile.
Me: Come around back
He doesn’t reply but I hear him, feet on dry grass making their way to me. Then he’s opening the door and standing there in the lamplight. He looks around, up at where I still haven’t finished sanding, and then back at me on the daybed. “Is it okay that I’m here?”
“There? No,” I say. “Come here.” And he climbs into my bed and pulls me into his arms.
“I wanted to hear the frogs and the crickets,” he says. “And I wanted to know what it felt like in your bed.”
“What do you think?” I ask, kissing him.
He pulls my leg up over him, and I’m amazed that it’s been only twenty-four hours since we figured out all the ways we fit together. “I think I want to stay as long as you’ll let me.”