24. Bonnie
BONNIE
On the second Wednesday in November, Gage kneels on my kitchen floor trying to fasten Cricket’s coat. I stand over the two of them wishing he did not have to drive back to town tonight. I could ask him to stay. I keep forgetting that I can.
She has grown into most of the green one. Its sleeves are still too long, and he has folded them back twice. She keeps pulling an arm out before he finds the second opening.
“Do you want to go out tonight?” I ask.
He stops with the coat half on. “With you?”
“That was the idea.”
Cricket objects to the pause. He finishes dressing her before he answers again.
“Yes. Where?”
“There’s a place in town I want to try. Cleo said she can stay with Cricket.”
“You already asked her?”
“I had to know whether I could leave the house.”
He looks so pleased that I have to turn toward the cupboard to hide how much I enjoy it.
At six, Cleo arrives with a book. Her son is having supper with his father, who will keep him until she gets back. She tells me she expects a report on the food.
“Go,” she says when I check the milk for the second time. “I know where you keep everything.”
I pull the tie out of my hair and work my fingers through the flattened place at the back. Gage waits by the door in a clean shirt. I catch him looking at me in the mirror and stop reaching for the tie again.
“You look beautiful,” he says.
I want to hear it. I want to go somewhere he will sit across from me all evening and keep looking. I leave my hair loose and put the tie on the dresser before he sees my hand shake.
“Thank you.”
The restaurant is small, with mismatched chairs and a menu that changes often enough that the server has to explain two dishes. I choose the one I cannot make at home. Gage orders steak, then looks apologetic when I laugh.
“You can get that anywhere.”
“I like knowing what dinner is.”
“You eat gas-station food on the road.”
“I know what that is too.”
I steal a piece of his bread. He moves the plate closer without interrupting the argument. I take another piece. He has always given me the bread from his plate; tonight I can enjoy it without wondering what he will ask for afterward.
He asks about the clinic. It filled last week, and on Saturday I taught the first session. I tell him how frightened I was on the morning I opened registration, how I refreshed the page until Cleo took my phone away.
“You didn’t tell me that part,” he says.
“I wanted to tell you when it worked.”
“What if it hadn’t?”
I turn the water glass between my palms. “I’m still working out what I want you to see.”
He looks at the glass, then at me. “I used to be the person you told.”
“Yes.”
“I miss that.”
“So do I.”
The admission makes my throat ache. He holds out his hand on the table, and after a moment I put mine in it.
“Has she tried to call?” I ask.
“Not on my phone. No private calls, messages, or meetings since I ended the campaign in July. We spoke in front of the camera at the showcase. Anything that still needs sorting out goes through Dewey.”
“If that changes, I need to hear it from you.”
“You will.”
I watch him over the rim of the glass. Then I put it down.
“When the first registration came in, I checked the name twice,” I say. “I was sure Cleo had paid somebody to sign up.”
“Had she?”
“She still says no.”
He laughs, and I want to tell him the rest.
The server brings dinner. We let the conversation pause because we are hungry. My dish is excellent. His steak is excellent too, which he points out with an expression I would have found unbearable from anyone else.
I give him a bite of mine. He admits it is good and then refuses to trade.
Over dessert, he tells me about the ranch.
The refrigerator finally stopped humming after a repair he should have arranged long ago.
The ranch manager has hired another trainer for some of the work Gage used to insist on doing himself.
Gage says the man is better with one difficult colt than he was, and he sounds irritated and pleased at once.
“That bothers you,” I say.
“A little.”
“Good for the colt.”
“That’s what the manager said.”
He watches me until I ask what he is doing.
“Enjoying dinner.”
I let him.
Outside, I put my coat on against the November cold before we reach the truck. We have time before I need to be home, so we walk a short way down the lit street. Gage keeps his hands in his pockets until I take one out.
“You can hold it,” I tell him.
He does. We stop outside a shop with handmade bowls in the window. Mine came back from firing darker than I expected, with the crooked white line still visible. I use it almost every day.
“Yours is better,” he says.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know who made yours.”
I turn toward him. He is close enough that I can see the small nick where he shaved badly beneath his chin. I touch it, remembering the dirt on his neck and how long I have been stopping at the edge of what I want.
“Kiss me,” I say.
He kisses me gently at first. I move closer and keep him there. His hand comes to my back over the coat. The kiss deepens, familiar enough to hurt and new enough that I have to stop thinking about the window and the people who might pass us.
When we separate, I am smiling. I don’t try to hide it from him.
“I’ve wanted to do that all evening,” he says.
“You could’ve asked.”
“I was trying to let you eat.”
I laugh against his shirt and kiss him again.
He drives me home before Cricket’s next feed and says goodnight at the door. I kiss him once more, where he can see I mean it without needing the restaurant or the cold street.
Then he goes back to town, and I go inside to my daughter.
Cleo is packing her book. I take Cricket from her and sit on the sofa. My daughter catches a strand of my loose hair, and I ease it out of her fist.
Cleo looks at my face, then down at her book. “So the food was good,” she says.
“Very.”
She smiles and leaves me to tell the baby about it.
A week later, Gage asks if I will go dancing with him.
I am standing in the cottage doorway with Cricket over my shoulder. He has come to collect her for their afternoon together, and I have a cloth pressed against the damp patch she has left on my shirt.
“Dancing?”
“The place near my hotel has a band on Wednesdays. We could eat first.”
I used to love dancing with him. He was good at it before we met, which I found irritating when I discovered how easily he could make me miss a step by looking pleased with himself.
“I haven’t been out dancing since before I got pregnant.”
“I remember.”
Of course he does. He was there. I wore boots I could barely get off when we came home, and he knelt on the floor and pulled while I laughed at him. I am tired of good memories arriving with something sharp behind them.
“Let me ask Cleo about tonight,” I say.
His smile makes me glad I have not said no.
Once he has gone with Cricket, I call Cleo. She can have Cricket at her house after dinner. Her son will be there, and she has promised him a story before bed. When I start explaining that I will not be very late, she interrupts.
“Bonnie. Tell me when you expect to be back, and take your phone. You sound as if you’re asking to borrow the car.”
“It feels a bit like that.”
“Well, I’m not lending you mine. There are crackers in the back seat I’m afraid to investigate.”
After I hang up, I stand in front of the closet. I have clothes that fit. I have already been to dinner with my husband and kissed him in the street. None of that helps me decide what I want him to see when I open the door tonight.
I choose a green dress I bought here, soft enough to move in and cut so I can feed Cricket before we leave. I turn in front of the mirror. I like the way the skirt moves. For once I leave the bedroom before I can talk myself out of what I like.
Gage brings Cricket home in time for her feed. He buckles Cricket into her bouncer and sets down the bag, starts to tell me something she did, and stops when I come out wearing the dress.
I wait. It is a small, shameless pleasure to let him look.
“That’s new,” he says.
“Yes.”
“I like it.”
“So do I.”
He comes closer. I put a hand against his shirt.
“Tell me what she did.”
“She caught my thumb and wouldn’t let go. I was trying to put my coat on.”
“You could’ve waited.”
“I did. We were late leaving.”
He kisses me after the story, more carefully than I want. I keep him there another moment and feel him stop being careful. When Cricket complains from her bouncer, we separate.
At dinner I order something I can eat without worrying about the dress. Gage notices and offers me a bite of his sauce-covered food. I refuse until he holds out a clean fork, so solemn about it that I have to give in.
“You’re enjoying this,” I tell him.
“Dinner with you? Yes.”
I could make a joke. Instead I take another bite from his plate.
The band is setting up while we eat. Two older couples move their chairs aside before the first song, apparently determined that nobody should mistake their plans. I watch a woman straighten her husband’s collar, then shake my head when Gage holds his own collar toward me.
“You can do that yourself.”
“I was hoping.”
“You need something wrong with it first.”
He pulls it crooked. I reach across the table to straighten it, then stop with my fingers against the fabric.
Tawny did this before the interview. I know because he told me. The memory has arrived in the middle of an evening I wanted, and I hate her for being able to come here without leaving her house.
“She did this for you,” I say.
Gage looks at my hand. His smile goes.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I withdraw my fingers. For a moment I want to leave. Then the band begins, and I remember asking Cleo to keep Cricket because I wanted to dance with my husband.
“I was having a good time.”
“So was I.”
“I still want to.”
He waits while I take a drink of water. I can be hurt by what he did and still want the rest of this evening. I do not have to make either feeling disappear before I stand up.
“Ask me to dance,” I say.
When he asks me to dance, I go with him. I have been thinking about his hand at my waist since he collected the baby.
The first few steps are awkward. I watch our feet and worry about people watching me. Gage adjusts. After a turn, I remember how to follow him, and then I am angry with my own body for finding him so familiar.
He feels me hesitate.
“Too fast?”
“No. Keep going.”
I want another turn with him, then another. Resting my cheek against his shoulder feels riskier than either, because I could let the whole song be easy.
So I do, for a little while.
He draws me closer. His shirt smells clean, with the faint outdoor smell that follows him in from whatever barn he has been working in. I know where the seam will press against my cheek. I know how his thumb will move when he forgets other people can see us.
For half a verse, I stop counting what has changed.
When I lift my head, he is watching me. I smile before I think about whether I meant to. He misses a step.
“You were very confident a minute ago.”
“You moved.”
“We’re dancing.”
He has no answer for that. I enjoy his defeat all the way through the next turn.
We dance twice, then sit because I need a drink and a rest. My legs are less willing than my ambition. Gage brings water and stays beside me while the floor fills again.
“Are you going to ask if I want to go home?” I say.
“I was going to offer you more water.”
“I’ll tell you when I want to go.”
“Good. I’m hoping it isn’t yet.”
I put my hand on his knee beneath the table, and he forgets to lift his own glass.
I used to do that to annoy him. Tonight I leave my hand there and watch his face.
He covers my hand with his. “You’re making it hard to concentrate on the music.”
“I thought you knew these songs.”
“I did.”
I look at him until he laughs and bends to kiss me. It is a brief kiss because we are at a table in a busy room. I dislike its brevity enough to be glad when a slower song begins.
This time, I do not watch our feet.
We leave before I am exhausted. In the parking lot he opens the passenger door, then stays beside it while I turn toward him.
“I had a good time,” I say.
“I can tell.”
“How?”
“You’ve been insulting my dancing for an hour.”
“It deserved attention.”
I take hold of his shirt and kiss him. He puts one hand at my back and the other against the open door, keeping it from swinging toward us. I am aware of the awkward position, the cold air at my legs and how little I care about either of them.
When I step back, he lets me. I could get into the truck. I kiss him again instead.
His hand presses harder at my back. I feel wanted so plainly that I stop trying to decide what I look like from the other side of the parking lot.
I put my hand flat on his chest and push, not hard. He stops at once.
“I want you,” I say. His chest rises hard under my palm. “And I want more than a parking lot.”
He breathes out. “Tell me when.”
“Soon. Take me home while I still mean it.”
He laughs and helps me into the truck.
On the drive home I want to put my hand on him. I keep it in my lap because he is driving and I have already discovered how easily I can distract him tonight.
“Are you staying through Friday?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What about tomorrow afternoon?”
“I’m working with the bay at the boarding barn until two.”
“You could come over after.”
“I’d like that.”
We make a plan to walk with Cricket if the weather is decent. I ask whether he can finish at the barn any earlier, then feel myself blush at the question. “One-thirty,” he says, and turns into Cleo’s lane before I have finished being embarrassed.
Inside, Cricket is awake and ready for me. Cleo’s son has fallen asleep against his mother halfway through explaining a picture he drew. I take my daughter, grateful for the evening and for being able to come home to her.
Gage carries the bag to the cottage. I feed Cricket while he waits in the kitchen, then put her down in the crib. When I come back, he is beside the door with his coat still on.
I want to ask him to take it off. The wish is clear enough to frighten me.
I go to him and put my arms around his waist.
“Thank you for asking me out.”
“I’ll do it again.”
“You’d better.”
He kisses me. I let it last, then let him go.
After his truck leaves, I take off the dress and hang it where I can see it in the morning. My legs ache pleasantly. I am going to be tired tomorrow, and I already know I will smile when Cleo asks whether it was worth it.