Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
L ucas drove them north through Florida and west through the panhandle with a heavy foot and a frantic, racing heart. But they couldn’t get out of the state before a heavy rain dropped upon them from roiling black clouds and sent them scampering into yet another roadside hotel. In the foyer, Lucas again asked for two bedrooms and passed one of the plastic key cards to Gale. He studied her eyes for some sense of her emotional state. It had been a day for the ages. And they were still thousands of miles from Walnut Creek, California.
Gale admitted she was starving. “Do you want to order room service from my room?” she asked, stretching her arms over her head in the elevator. Her shirt came up over her belly button, and Lucas felt his blood pressure skyrocket until she lowered her arms again. He wasn’t sure he should follow her into her bedroom. But suddenly, as though he’d been drawn there by an invisible force, he was seated at the edge of her bed, looking over the menu and suggesting they share a salad, pizza, and maybe mozzarella sticks. “I’ll probably have a glass of wine or something. To calm down,” he added. She agreed and wanted one too.
Gale brushed her hair with a flat brush. Lucas liked the sound it made as it purred over her luscious strands. He remembered watching Monica brush her hair—sometimes one hundred strokes per night. Sometimes that was when she’d picked fights with him. It was always about silly marital things that Lucas couldn’t remember anymore.
Back in Nantucket, Lucas made a point never to drive by the house they’d shared. It was practically haunted now.
Their food came twenty minutes after they ordered. Outside, lightning lit up the night sky, and thunder made the hotel shiver. Gale flicked through television channels, and Lucas went to his room to change into something more comfortable, then propped himself up on one side of her bed to eat pizza and watch sitcoms. Gale had picked The Big Bang Theory, and they belly-laughed at the silly jokes and wiped their hands of grease. Gale hadn’t brought up the events of the day. Maybe she wanted to spend the evening pretending it hadn’t been one of the most interesting and gut-wrenching days of her life. Perhaps she wanted a few hours of normalcy.
Gale tucked herself into bed and pulled the blanket to her chin. Lucas put the rest of the pizza in the fridge and prepared to leave. But Gale gestured toward the television and said, “There’s a movie coming on after this. Rear Window, the one with Jimmy Stewart. Stay and watch!”
Lucas’s heart pounded. He knew he needed to go. But he watched himself crawl back onto Gale’s bed and prop his head up with one of her fluffy pillows. He could smell her perfume and feel her heat just a couple of feet away. This bed was no California king. This bed brought their bodies closer together than they’d ever been.
Lucas couldn’t focus on the film. He tried desperately. But all he could do was think of Gale, wonder what would happen next, and pray that he wouldn’t mess anything up. He crossed his hands over his stomach and felt the same as he had at thirteen, a slave to his hormones. But that was when he realized Gale’s breathing had changed. She was asleep. Softly, slowly, she shifted onto her side so that her nose and lips were just a few inches from his face. He could feel her warm breath on his neck. Is this what she wants?
Lucas kept himself as still as he could. He didn’t want to wake her. He didn’t want to interrupt the beauty of this moment.
But he also didn’t want to fall asleep here and anger her. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to take advantage of her in any way. Is that why I’m helping her? he asked himself. Am I only helping her to get closer to her? Am I really so manipulative?
Lucas shifted out of bed delicately and put his feet on the ground. But suddenly, Gale reached out to touch his elbow. Her eyes remained closed. Her eyelids were dewy.
“Wait. Peter,” Gale breathed, mostly asleep. “Can you get me a glass of water, please?”
Lucas felt the name Peter like a sword through the gut. She just left her husband. She spent the past decades of her life sleeping next to him. She’s not used to sleeping alone yet.
Lucas went to the bathroom to fill a plastic cup with water and returned to press it into her hand. She hardly opened her eyes to drink, then set the plastic cup on the side table and returned to dreamland. This left Lucas alone with his anxious, swirling thoughts. I need to back off. She’s not ready. And it’s not like I want anything, anyway.
No more hand holding. No more flirting. No more dreaming.
Lucas met Gale downstairs the following morning to grab coffee, cereal, and toast slathered with peanut butter and honey. An air-conditioning unit kicked out cold and alienating air, and they shivered in the breakfast area. Gale wanted to drive at least ten hours today. Lucas contemplated telling her to go the rest of the way without him. He imagined saying, I’m needed back in Nantucket, actually. Maybe he could blame it on the Whaling Museum Festival. But that was still a week and a half away.
“I’ll start driving today,” Gale announced. “Five hours straight through before lunch. No excuses.”
She wanted to get all the way through Louisiana today. If it comes to it, I’ll get up the nerve to ask her to drop me off in New Orleans, Lucas decided. I can fly back to Boston. I’ll get Jefferson to come pick me up.
Lucas was all too aware that he was on the verge of breaking his own heart. He hadn’t known it was possible anymore.
Lucas packed up his bags and slid into the passenger seat. Gale put on a pair of sunglasses and adjusted her rearview mirror. “Let’s get Florida behind us,” she muttered angrily. “I never want to see this state again!”
Lucas remained quiet for the first hour of driving. He kept remembering, with startling accuracy, last night’s intimacy and how desperately he’d wanted to roll over and kiss her good night. He kept hearing her say the name Peter. He was really working himself up about it. Tears sprang to his eyes. I’m so naive. I’ve always been so naive.
“You’re pretty quiet over there,” Gale said after a few hours. “Did you sleep okay?”
No. I spent all night awake, thinking about you.
“I’m all right,” Lucas lied. He scrambled for something to say. He yearned for the magic of their conversations to return. “Have you told your daughters about any of this yet?”
Gale hummed. “I haven’t. I don’t really know where to start.”
Lucas nodded and gazed out the window. The lawn on either side of the highway was a verdant green. The color reminded him of photographs of the rainforest. He was sure they were in Mississippi, but it all looked the same. The car’s central cooling system was no match for the humidity outside.
“Have you told Nora?” Gale asked.
Lucas raised both eyebrows. Again, he cursed himself for ever having said Nora’s name aloud. He blamed his loneliness. He was too susceptible to something this intimate.
“I haven’t told her.” Lucas’s tone was stiff. He hated how he sounded. He hated how angry he felt at Gale for asking. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat.
“Where does she live? Not Nantucket, right?”
Lucas shook his head. “She’s not in Nantucket.”
Gale furrowed her brow. An awkward silence swelled between them. Lucas searched for an explanation—something that told her that he didn’t want to talk about Nora but also something that eased the tension. But his thoughts were tumbling into each other. They were nonsensical. Suddenly, ten minutes passed, then another fifteen. Gale flipped through the radio stations but couldn’t find anything but country music.
“Why don’t you let me drive?” Lucas asked suddenly.
“No. It’s okay.” Gale’s words sounded stiff.
“It’s my turn.”
Gale adjusted her hands on the steering wheel. “This is my deal. My family. You’re already doing me an enormous favor by coming along.”
“But you’ve been driving for hours. You must be exhausted.”
Gale flared her nostrils. It occurred to Lucas that they were speaking to one another like people who didn’t like each other very much. Like Harry and Sally in the opening scene.
Lucas’s stomach roiled. He wondered if they would make it through another day without an enormous fight. It had been a long time since he’d actually fought with someone. He wondered if he was still good at it. Or was I only “really good” at fighting with Monica because we had so much history between us? I knew just what to say and when. I knew just what to say to twist the knife.
He wasn’t proud of that. Thought of it riddled him with shame.
But it was almost as though Gale could read his mind.
“You know, you don’t have to go the whole way with me,” she said. “I could turn and go into New Orleans. You could grab a flight back to Boston. Heck, I’ll even pay for it.”
Lucas’s heartbeat intensified. Was she saying this because she wanted him gone? Was this a clue? Monica had told him so often that he was the smartest man in the room except when it came time to judge what people really meant when they said the things that they said. You don’t understand today’s people, she’d said. You only understand history’s people. And you only understand them because so many other historians have decided what they meant when they said what they did.
Monica had also been very good at saying just the right thing to hurt him.
How had Peter and Gale fought? Having been married for so long, had they known how to hurt each other, too?
“Maybe that’s better,” Lucas told Gale now. “I have so many things to get done for the Whaling Museum Festival. And Jefferson is lost without me.”
In actuality, Lucas hadn’t heard from Jefferson. Not once.
Gale nodded and remained quiet. When signs appeared for New Orleans, she went south and carried them all the way to that city on the shoreline. A city that nature continued to rip into, over and over; a city with hurricanes that threatened the integrity of its people. But they always rebuilt. What did that say about the people of New Orleans? Did it mean they were invincible? Or did it mean they couldn’t take a hint?
Lucas had never been to New Orleans. His heart ached at the idea that Gale would drop him off at the airport and then carry on without him. Would they run into each other in Nantucket and pretend none of this had happened? It was what adults did, he knew. They pretended. We pretend.
Lucas was suddenly sick with grief. He pressed on his chest and reminded himself to keep breathing.
“Do you want to see the city tonight before you go?” Gale asked quietly.
Lucas’s heart opened up. He turned to gaze at her beautiful profile. Another rainstorm splattered across the car windows, and it felt cozy and sticky; it felt as though this car was the only world they’d ever had.
“I’d like that,” he said.
Gale continued to drive quietly while Lucas hunted online for two hotel rooms in the French Quarter. They agreed they wanted to spend an iconic night in New Orleans. They wanted to hear blistering, heart-wrenching jazz music. They wanted to eat Southern food until their bellies hurt.
Lucas wondered if going to New Orleans was an acknowledgment of the love brewing between them. He wondered if it was a way of experiencing it before they had to fully let it go.
Gale parked outside the hotel, and they went inside to freshen up after the drive. Lucas changed into a clean white T-shirt and a pair of jeans and brushed out his hair with his fingers. He imagined the future—seeing Gale out on the boardwalk by the Nantucket Harbor with a stranger, a man. He imagined shaking the man’s hand and thinking I would have loved her better than you if only I’d taken my chance.
Was this his only chance?
Gale waited for him downstairs. She wore a pretty light pink dress he’d never seen before. Had it been packed away in her suitcase all this time? Her red hair cascaded beautifully, with no memory of the humidity outside. She’d likely added tons of product to make it so. Had she made it look like that for him? No, he reminded himself. It’s for New Orleans. It’s for the excitement of a new city.
It was seven, and they agreed they were starving. They wandered through the French Quarter with the curiosity and ease of two children exploring. A trombone quartet played on the corner, and a saxophonist howled down the block. Tourists were everywhere, drinking beer and wine on the street. It was like a big party. Everyone was invited. Lucas purchased them two glasses of white wine, and they watched a rhythm guitarist perform and chatted lightly about where they could go for dinner. Lucas caught a few people looking at them curiously. It was clear they thought they were a “pretty” couple.
Lucas couldn’t help himself as they walked to the restaurant. He touched the small of her back. Her smile brightened.
He thought, this is the happiest I’ve been in years.
Gale and Lucas sat outside the restaurant and ordered fish and rice heaped with spicy sauces, fried shrimp, garlic bread, and more wine. From everywhere came the sounds of instruments and vocals. It all merged in a vibrant cacophony.
“I can’t believe this place exists,” Gale breathed.
Lucas’s heart nearly exploded.
After dinner, they went to a jazz club and grabbed a round table and a couple more drinks. Lucas told himself to have some water and slow down. He didn’t want to be hungover on the flight tomorrow. Being hungover always made him so miserable and sad. But he also wanted to ride out the night.
When the jazz band on stage played a slow song, Lucas sipped his beer, raised his chin, and got up the nerve to ask, “Do you want to dance?”
Gale looked deathly serious. For a moment, he thought she was going to stutter a no. Maybe she’d say you must have gotten the wrong idea.
But instead, she slipped her hand in his and led him to the dance floor.
Gale and Lucas danced slowly, shifting against one another, their lips hovering inches from one another. Their eyes were locked.
Softly, Gale said, “I feel crazy.”
Lucas couldn’t breathe. He hoped she couldn’t tell how nervous he was.
“You look beautiful,” Lucas said.
Gale closed her eyes. It was as though she wanted to leap into his words and luxuriate in them.
Lucas considered telling her, I know you just left your husband. I know this is too fast. But he managed to bite his tongue, fall into the music, and just exist. He managed to feel this beautiful woman in his arms. He managed to feel and not think. Monica would have been shocked.
They danced three songs together before the jazz band returned to a frantic beat. Lucas and Gale returned to their table, glistening with sweat and smiling sloppily. Gale took her purse to the bathroom, and Lucas felt as though he floated somewhere over the table. He considered looking for flights back to Boston. But as his thumbs hovered over the search bar, Gale returned—looking frantic—and said, “I know it’s too much to ask.”
Lucas gazed at her. “What’s too much to ask?”
“It’s too much to ask you to come out to California with me,” Gale said. “And it’s too much to tell you I need you. But I do.”
Lucas was breathless. He set his phone back down.
“Tell me I’m crazy,” Gale said.
Lucas shook his head ever so slightly. “I could never. Not without calling myself crazy first.”
Gale sat back down and placed her hand over his on the table. On stage, the alto saxophonist closed his eyes and sent a gorgeous rasping solo into the world. Lucas couldn’t look away from the woman before him. Her smile lit up the room.