Chapter 8
The conservatory after closing belonged to the plants.
Without visitors, I could hear water running through the old pipes and leaves brushing the glass when the ventilation fans stirred. The public paths were dark except for the work lights we'd placed along the gala route.
Nate stood on a ladder beneath the dome, holding one end of a measuring tape.
“Two feet left,” I called.
“Your left or mine?”
“The left that doesn't put a chandelier through a palm tree.”
“Botanical lighting,” he said.
“You're learning.”
We'd spent three hours testing sight lines after a trustee added six tables. Everyone else had gone home, but Nate stayed to help mark the new placements. Watching his hands had become an inconvenient habit.
We carried the plans into the apprenticeship greenhouse, where a battered kettle and two mugs occupied a corner of the potting bench. Nate made tea strong enough to repair masonry.
“Why horticulture?” I asked.
He handed me tea strong enough to repair masonry. His father had owned a landscaping company, and Nate had spent summers digging holes for couples who believed a hydrangea could fix their marriage. After college, he'd worn a suit for fifteen years before admitting he hated it.
“You still sit behind a desk.”
“Yes, but now I can escape and shout at event planners.”
“At least you're self-aware.”
We could still use the anniversary booking in September. Think about it.
I turned the phone facedown.
Nate had seen the name. “Do you need to answer?”
“No.”
“Was that the trip?”
I looked at him.
“You mentioned postponing an anniversary trip when we talked about the opening schedule,” he said. “I remember things.”
“Occupational hazard?”
“Only when I care.”
I concentrated on my tea.
“I postponed it twice,” I said. “Bennett thinks that's when our marriage became predictable.”
“Do you?”
“I think I chose work because it needed me.”
“Didn't he?”
The honest answer was complicated enough to hurt.
“Bennett needed what I did. That isn't quite the same.”
“And your company?”
“A ballroom doesn't pretend it can set itself.”
Nate reached for my mug and put it beside his. “You came here on two hours' sleep the day after your husband left and fought me over cables.”
“You started that fight.”
“I did. I'm saying you could've told me it was a bad day instead of treating it like another event to run.”
“It was none of your business.”
“You're right.” His jaw set. “It wasn't. I shouldn't have said anything.”
He turned away and began stacking empty trays.
The apology annoyed me more than the observation. “You don't get to point at a bruise and then become noble when I tell you it hurts.”
Nate faced me again. “What response would you prefer?”
“I don't know.”
“That makes two of us.”
We stared at each other across the potting bench.
I was angry because he'd reduced twenty years of survival to a habit he could name after three dates. I was angrier because he wasn't entirely wrong.
“I don't need you to diagnose me,” I said.
“Understood.”
“Stop being so agreeable.”
“Claire, I can't win this argument if the rules change every thirty seconds.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
His expression softened, and that was nearly my undoing.
I walked around the bench, put my hand against the back of his neck and kissed him.
There was nothing careful about it this time. Nate lifted me onto the edge of the bench, dislodging a stack of plastic labels. They scattered across the concrete. His mouth moved from mine to the hollow beneath my ear, and I forgot the dome, the floor plan and the message waiting on my phone.
His hand slid beneath my blouse. I wanted him, a simple fact that frightened me. I caught his wrist.
He stopped immediately, breathing hard.
“I should go home.”
Frustration crossed his face before he covered it.
“Probably.”
I took it from him. “You're annoyed.”
“I'm fifty-three, Claire. I can be disappointed and still behave.”
That made me smile.
At the entrance, Nate held the door. “You're angry with me. Are you going to disappear?”
“No. I may sulk professionally for a day.”
“Can I call tomorrow?”
“After ten.”
He kissed my forehead instead of my mouth. I was absurdly disappointed.
“I'll work on keeping my opinions to myself,” he said.
“That should be painful.”
Then he opened the door, drew me back by the waist and kissed me until I forgot why I was annoyed.
At home, I deleted Bennett's photograph without answering.
Then I found one of the plastic plant labels in the cuff of my trousers and put it on my nightstand.