10. Saturday #3
“That’s not why I asked you.” The wind blew around them for a moment. “But if you’re asking if it bothers me that you don’t still shoot, then yes, it bothers me. Because you’re talented. And I know your photography is how you processed things.”
“No. You don’t get to say that to me.”
He frowned, reaching one hand towards her arm. “Sarah—”
“You of all people. I would never have been with Danny if you hadn’t—”
She couldn’t finish, so she turned and walked away, farther and farther across the dark lawn that seemed to shake like the fur of a wild beast in the wind, her figure lit up by boxes of light from the hotel windows.
She kept going until there was no more light, her body cold and shaking, past the edge of the lawn and down to the six-foot cliffs that led to the beach.
The tide was low and the air smelled of broken shells.
She climbed down the rocks in her jumpsuit and landed with a stumble on the beach, where waves and stones and sky were all she could see.
The stars above were pinprick sharp, tears in the eyes of the night sky.
It was quiet for a moment, all sound drowned except the hiss of the wind and the waves attacking the rocky sand.
His voice called from behind her, out of her sight. “Sarah? Can I talk to you?”
“No!” she called back up. “I’m fine. Just leave me.”
A long moment passed. “I’m going to go finish up shooting the wedding. But I’m here if you need me.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Can we talk later?”
She was silent. After a long moment, she said, “No.”
She waited there until she was sure he was gone. There was nothing to look at now but the waves and the darkness. She pressed one hand against a rock that stood at waist height and waited to see if she could vomit. But no, she was stuck with the lump of pain in her stomach, immobile and permanent.
She couldn’t have kids. Danny had wanted kids. He had wanted kids enough to be careless with birth control once he started cheating on her. He may have started cheating on her so that he could be careless with birth control.
Abby, Paul’s bride, could get pregnant in her late thirties, which made her very much not like Sarah.
After a few minutes, Sarah managed to pull herself together and climb back up the rocks, walking alone across the vast lawn and back to the party.
She needed to make sure that her mother felt taken care of.
That was one nice thing about adulthood.
There was always something you had to do next, another responsibility to keep you from letting your emotions rise like the wind and push you off a cliff.
The dancing had begun in earnest by the time she got back.
For all of her joking with Ren about choreographed dances, it turned out that she hadn’t been far off: Laura and Ollie were doing some kind of polished dance that looked choreographed but wasn’t.
Abby and Paul were wrapped around each other, staring into each other’s eyes to a song that was definitely not designed for eye staring.
Her mother was watching from a table in the corner, sipping on a white wine.
“Come on, Mom,” Sarah said. “Let’s dance.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t really dance anymore.”
“Come on. Get up.”
“Oh, no. You go ahead. I’m a little tired.”
Sarah wanted to drag her mother up onto the dance floor, but her heart wasn’t in it. Instead, she slumped down in a seat next to her. They sat there for a long time, watching the happy couples swaying and laughing.
Ren wasn’t dancing either. He was watching her intently from across the room. She frowned and looked away.
“Do you think I gave Paul enough money?” her mother said after a while. “I just want to give the right amount.”
Two hours later, Sarah lay in bed near the sleeping figure of her mother, staring at the ceiling. The clock told her that it was just after midnight, and she knew that somewhere in the hotel was Ren, probably sleeping but maybe still awake. Steps away.
She stared at her cell phone for a long moment, wondering if she still had his number.
Not that she was going to text him. What would she say?
He had wanted to talk and she had said no.
So tomorrow morning was the last time she would probably ever see him—if she saw him at all.
They were going to go home, and that would be that.
That would be the end of their friendship forever.
She got up out of bed, threw on some shoes and a sweatshirt over her pajamas, and put her cell phone in her pocket before tiptoeing into the hallway of the hotel and then down the stairs.
The hotel was mostly closed up for the night, though Sarah could hear some staff members still moving around the kitchen, cleaning up.
She walked quietly through the empty lobby and out the back door to the porch.
She wasn’t concerned about being locked out.
Newfoundland was extremely casual about the locking of doors.
Her home province probably had jewelry stores that didn’t bother to lock up at night.
Outside, she found a low, wooden deck chair on the back patio and sat down in it, feeling the painted wood like a soft, cool hand against the back of her neck. She could hear the distant rush of the waves. No traffic. A slender finger of cloud came and went across the moon.
She shivered a little and looked up.
The sky was spectacular: clear and endless and filled with billions of stars stretching out to eternity. Her heart felt as empty as a hole.