Nineteen
By the time they’d reached the Rochester airport, a speedy twelve-minute ride, Nina realized she’d made a terrible mistake.
All she could see in her mind’s eye was Fern.
Fern flying out of the house and down the front walk.
Fern standing in her bare feet in the falling snow.
Fern frantically waving. Those terrible seconds when she locked eyes with Fern.
She’d almost waved back until she remembered what she was up to with Fern’s father.
In that moment, she could have said something to Finn, who hadn’t seen Fern, but then he took her hand, smiled reassuringly, and said, “Here we go.” And they left.
As they landed in New York for their connecting flight, she made a beeline for the departures board, looking for the next flight back to Rochester.
Three from JFK in the afternoon, the first only a few hours away.
He could go on without her, get his divorce, and start over, but her life couldn’t transform into a cacophony of heartbreak.
But Finn took her arm and led her to the Pan Am terminal with its flying saucer–like roof, up a flight of stairs, and through a door marked CLIPPER CLUB, which even at this early hour was full of businessmen drinking screwdrivers and tall glasses of beer and other beverages that seemed more appropriate for a smoky bar late at night.
She could see how the airport existed in suspension.
What time zone had all these people come from and where were they going?
You couldn’t tell much by looking at a person.
Nobody would suspect that Finn, walking toward her holding two extravagantly garnished Bloody Marys, a perfect picture of a successful businessman in his pin-striped suit with the wide lapels, white shirt, and neatly arranged hair, had just run out on his wife.
Nobody would look at Nina in her black A-line shift and tidy ballet flats and think, That’s a woman who just abandoned her family.
After the second drink, Nina let herself be guided once more to their connecting flight.
On the plane to Santo Domingo, an upbeat Finn acted as if the confounding betrayals and confusing legalities were behind them and this was a honeymoon, fully sanctioned by their loved ones and friends, blessed by state and church.
Nina recoiled from his smugness. She turned her head to the small window.
Finn opened his briefcase and went through piles of memos and what looked like inventory sheets while she tried to stop the distant beat of a Bloody Mary headache.
She was queasy. She tried slow, deep breaths like the silly yoga teacher had instructed and mercifully fell asleep until they landed.
When she woke and woozily stepped off the plane into the Caribbean sun, she felt as if she crossed into Oz.
The heat and humidity hit her like a punch.
She didn’t know where her sunglasses were.
She shielded her eyes and grabbed the railing to walk down the steel staircase leading from the door of the plane.
The heat on the tarmac was brutal. Finn was carrying her winter coat, and though she’d picked a lightweight worsted wool dress to wear on the plane, she immediately broke out into a sweat.
She looked at her watch. Two p.m. Last period.
Bridie had math and Clara would be in AP American History.
“Lord, it’s hot,” she said. She’d expected the bright sun but thought the air would sit light on her skin, not this thick, weighted atmosphere.
“Wait until we’re sitting by the hotel pool.
You won’t mind the heat.” Finn stopped on the tarmac and turned to her, took her in his arms in front of everyone and kissed her on the lips, deeply, brazenly.
It was the first time they’d been affectionate in public, and even though the other people watching them were complete strangers, the kiss was electric and reassuring.
When they arrived at the hotel and she opened the door to their room, she was overwhelmed by the scent of roses.
Finn had filled the ocean-view suite with roses of all colors.
Red and white and pink and yellow. In the middle of it all, a silver bucket with condensed water droplets on the outside, an expensive bottle of champagne cooling.
She froze, stood holding her purse. Finn unlatched his bag and reached in for a camera and film.
The bright yellow box with the Kodak logo was such a familiar sight from home (it was not her home anymore; it had stopped being her home when she left this morning) it startled her.
“You’re taking pictures?” she asked.
“Of course. Don’t you want to remember the first days of the rest of our lives?” He fiddled with the lens a little and brought the camera up to his eye. “Smile.”
That photo was the first one they’d see when they developed the roll: Nina, still in her traveling clothes, backlit from the light coming in from their balcony so her face was somewhat shadowed, though you could see the furrowed brow, her lips slightly parted but not smiling.
One hand clasping her handbag. The toes of her left foot grinding into the carpet.
She looked more like a hostage than a bride.