Waltzing at Midnight (16 page)

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“It sounds like it,” I said, wondering if there was more to this story. What did she mean by “one of the guys”? What did she mean by “club”? I couldn’t ask, especially after she had told me to get out of her life.

“Tomorrow Jerry and Amy are coming over for the day,” I said.“Glad to hear it. Are you finding everything?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back Sunday as planned. If you want to go home tomorrow evening, go ahead. You don’t have to stay. Slip the key under the back door. I know you must be bored there.”

“I’m not bored, Rosie. I’m enjoying myself.”

“Well, it’d still be a good idea if you went home tomorrow or, if you want, early Sunday.”

Yes, Rosie, I get the message, I thought. She didn’t want me there when she came back.

After saying goodnight to her, I returned to the movie. When it finally ended, I just sat where I was, watching, but not seeing, the credits roll by. I had always assumed that
Masterpiece Theatre
was for fuddy-duddies. If this was typical, that was a big misconception.

I was emotionally drained, but also highly aroused by the violent passions I had just witnessed. It was essentially a tragic story, but it was also a story about an all-consuming obsession that burned in two women their whole lives long. When Sappho came up and butted my arm, wanting to be petted, I roused myself and went to bed.

Tonight my fantasies were more intense than last night’s. I imagined Rosie making love to me, with her fingers, with her tongue. I imagined myself as the sultry woman in her hotel room, the stranger whose name she didn’t know, whose face she would always remember. Holding these images in my mind, I touched myself, imagining that my hand was Rosie’s, that she lay beside me, that her hands and mouth were all over me, that her voice was in my ear telling me how beautiful I was and how much she wanted me. I fell asleep with a sated body and a mind in turmoil.

11

“Be careful,” I called to Amy Saturday as she climbed onto Vita’s back. She had brought her boyfriend Tommy who was pretending, with some success, that he knew all about horses, though it was Amy who saddled them both. She rode off into the field looking confident and lovely. Our children had both turned out better than anyone could have hoped. Bradley was smart and decent and responsible. Amy was lively and outgoing and relaxed.

Jerry looked at me and smiled affectionately, slipping his arm around my waist. Was he too thinking about our children?

Under the circumstances, I couldn’t help wondering if I still loved this man. Sure, I thought, I must love him. Things had been good between us. I remembered what Rosie said about her marriage, about how she and her husband had become like brother and sister. Brothers and sisters love each other too. I couldn’t honestly say I was in love with Jerry, not anymore. Years ago we had apparently fallen out of love and didn’t even notice.

Oh, I wasn’t so naive that I’d missed the natural cooling down over the years. But I’d always thought that we still loved each other, that the things we did that looked like love were exactly what they looked like. We were still traveling through space like a rocket after the fuel was exhausted, maintaining course and speed with nobody at the helm.

Am I deluding myself, I wondered, because of Rosie, into believing I don’t love my husband?

We barbecued steaks and potatoes for dinner on Rosie’s gas grill. In the kitchen, I made a salad, listening to a Madeleine Peyroux CD. Amy and Tommy brushed the horses. When Jerry brought the steak in, he asked, “What’s that music?”

“Jazz,” I answered.

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. It’s growing on me.”

Amy and Tommy teased and insulted each other good-naturedly, just like siblings. He called her “dude” a lot. She called him “dude” a lot. It was funny to watch them. I concluded that Tommy was not going to be around very much longer. Amy didn’t love him. There was no desperation between them.

11

After dinner, the three of them left for home. I stayed. Rosie would arrive tomorrow hoping I was already gone. I wouldn’t be gone at all. Somewhere in my muddled brain, I was plotting, but I didn’t even know what. All I knew was what my body knew, that it wanted to see her again, that it wanted to touch her again, even if the result was the same. Even if she turned me away.

Which she would, of course, because she was too shrewd to give in to me. What did she need me for anyway? She had just spent a passionate night with a sultry advertising executive in Phoenix, and tonight she was lying in the arms of the enigmatic Grace Carpenter in Sacramento. What the hell did I have to offer her after that?

11

By Sunday morning I was so excited about Rosie’s return that I couldn’t be still. I mopped the kitchen floor, raked leaves, baked brownies full of my freshly shelled walnuts, and avoided thinking too much about how I would greet her or how she would treat me. I had to will myself not to think about that or I would have spun off into the stratosphere.

By noon, I was panicking and began throwing my things into my suitcase. You’ve got to get out of here, I thought with alarm.

Then, looking at the turbulent pile of clothing, I realized that I was acting ridiculous, certainly not my age. Calm down, I advised myself, be poised, be rational. I cut the brownies into squares and gave the cats a fresh bowl of water.

When Rosie arrived, I would say hi, ask about her trip, give her the accumulated mail, and go home. Yes, you’ll go home in time to make dinner for Jerry and Amy. That’s the plan, then. No more of this life in Fantasyland. It was an entertaining diversion, a swerve off the highway of life, and now we had to get back on the main road. Being alone for a few days can fill your head with the most bizarre thoughts. Yes, I was over it. I chuckled at myself 120

and ate a brownie, perfectly composed. Then I sat down to read a magazine and got caught up in a story about global warming.

I needed to pay more attention to what was happening in the world, develop some civic-mindedness. I should “go green,” I thought.

It was a few minutes after two when I heard the crunch of gravel under the wheels of a car. Rosie! I sat up stiffly. She would see my car, would know I was still here. I went out to help her with her luggage. Pulling a suitcase out of the trunk, she smiled and said, “Hi.”

So she wasn’t unhappy about my being here, not enough to let it show. What a relief. She wore slim black slacks and a knit sweater of gray and red rectangles. Rosie carried the small bag and I carried the large one through the open front door.

“How was the trip?” I asked.

“Successful. But it always feels good to be home. How are things around here?”

“No problems.”

She put the suitcase in the front room, sniffing the air. “Smells good. What is it? Chocolate cake?”

“Brownies.”

“Oooh, I love brownies!”

Our eyes met for the first time since she’d arrived. Rosie’s eager smile gradually faded as we stood for several moments looking at one another like statues, so quietly I could hear the ticking of a clock in another room. My nerves had gone taut. My plans, whatever they had been, had no hope of reclaiming me.

“So,” she said, looking away from me, “where are my babies?”

Her voice was unsteady. She could feel it too, the powerful urgency between us. She wanted me, I realized. There was no doubt about it now.

“In the kitchen, I think,” I said. “I just fed them.” I could feel the trembling in my body, growing worse each moment like the rumblings of a volcano before it erupts.

Rosie, stepping around me, said, “Go home, Jean.” It was a command. She strode into the kitchen.

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I stood where I was, my mind whirling. When we looked at each other, there was such power, such emotion in that link. I hadn’t understood it before, hadn’t been receptive to what had been there all along—sexual energy. If she’d been a man, I would have recognized it instantly. And no man would have tried to hide it from me like Rosie had. I had thought it was the exhilaration of the campaign, that it was all just the rush of the work we were doing. But it was the excitement of mutual attraction that had infected us both. Realizing that, I was overjoyed. Rosie felt it too! I heard her talking to Sappho and Meg in the kitchen in an affectionate tone you use with small children. I bolted through the doorway to find her with her mouth full and a brownie in her hand. The two cats were rubbing against her legs.

“Very good,” she said, indicating the brownie. Then she popped the rest of it into her mouth and frowned. “Jean, you’ve got a look on your face like you’re going to eat me alive. Go home.”

“I want you,” I said, feeling explosive.

“Forget it.” Her voice was stern. “It’s not going to happen.”

She swallowed, glaring at me. “Jean, I’m not kidding. I want you to leave.”

I felt myself collapsing on the inside. “Rosie,” I said, hurt,

“can you honestly say you aren’t attracted to me?”

She looked at me sort of helplessly, the resolve on her face falling away. “You idiot,” she said. “Of course I am. That’s why I want you out of here. Because this is dangerous. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

I stepped toward her. “All I know is that I want to touch you.”

Rosie stood staring at me, her eyes tormented. She made no move, said nothing. I reached out and took hold of her arm, pulling her closer. She let herself be manipulated, like a mannequin. I put my arms around her waist, loosely, then ran my hands up her back, over her sweater, to her shoulder blades. She didn’t move, just stared at me, her look almost angry. For the first 122

time, I felt her body touching mine, her stomach, her thighs, her breasts swelling against me through our clothes as she breathed, and, at last, there was the roundness, the warmth, the reality of her. There was no way I could stop touching her now.

“You’ve got a crumb,” I said quietly, my voice concealing the hunger of my skin. I moved my face closer and, with the tip of my tongue, licked a brownie crumb away from the corner of her mouth, letting my tongue linger for just a second. I closed my eyes and felt a flood of heat gushing through my veins.

And then I felt her lips on mine, pressing softly. I felt her arms surround me and the pressure of her kiss deepening. Her lips were full and luxurious, a mouth alive with desire. I pressed myself against her, my insides surging. I felt her tongue glide over my lips. I opened my mouth and took it in, and my body responded intuitively, closing the gap between our hips and thighs. She kissed my mouth with such a need. I was melting, going weak in the knees. I felt them giving way, and then she pushed me back into the wall, pinning me against it. She filled my mouth with her tongue, pushed my legs apart with her knee, held me against the wall with the pressure of her body, my feet barely touching the floor. Her strength surprised me.

My body moved, encouraged by the force of her thigh against my pubic bone. I was already so aroused that I could feel the fabric of my clothes sliding easily between my legs. The way she held me, pressing me into the wall, my legs useless, I could no longer act. My body was a limp object at her command. I was startled by how completely she had possession of me, not just physically, but in my gut, in my nerves. She rocked me against her thigh, her breath hot in my ear, until I came, not localized as I was used to, but radiating over my entire body, all the way out to my fingertips. A low cry escaped my throat and then I heard myself sort of whimper with each exhaled breath until, gradually, I was just breathing again.

She slowly released her grip on me and held me gently against her, my head on her shoulder, my body spent, and all of this had happened, I realized, in about two minutes. She lowered 123

me to a chair, then stood watching me, looking bewildered, even apologetic.

What would have happened next, I don’t know because just then the doorbell rang and both of us started violently at the sound.

“Hey, Rosie,” called a feminine voice through the house. “I saw your car. Are you home?”

Rosie turned back to me to say, “We left the front door open.

I’ll have to go.”

She went to greet her visitor and I stood, tentatively, testing my legs. Who was this person barging in on us, I thought, indignantly. Some lover who’d been waiting for her return? Is that why she wanted me gone when she came home?

I stood more firmly and straightened my shirt, coaxing my breathing back to normal.

Rosie returned, followed by a boy of about eleven. “Jean, this is Daniel, a friend of mine.”

I started to say something, but found I still couldn’t speak.

“He came by to collect his money for mowing the lawn.

Sorry I didn’t think to pay you before I went out of town, Danny.

I’ll be right back with your money. Why don’t you help yourself to a brownie there?”

She glanced at me before leaving, a look of entreaty and concern.

Daniel flashed me a broad grin before grabbing a brownie. I smiled, grimaced or nodded, I’m not sure what, and wordlessly left the kitchen. My suitcase was already mostly packed from earlier when I’d panicked and started to run away. I finished packing in a flustered rush and lugged my suitcase out to the car.

I could hear Rosie and Daniel talking from the kitchen as I went out the front door.

Standing in the driveway in the afternoon sun, I felt stupid and absurd. I was running away and I didn’t know why. I had gotten just what I wanted, what I’d practically forced her into. As I slammed my trunk, Rosie and Daniel came out the front door.

Daniel ran off with a spare brownie in hand.

124

“So, you’re off, then?” Rosie said.