“No,” he said, starting the engine and pulling out of town. “Not at all.”
When Adrienne next opened her eyes, she was alone in the truck. It was dark, and looking out the window she saw nothing but more dark.
“Thatcher?” she said.
She heard a hissing noise outside her window. When she opened her door, she saw Thatcher kneeling by the front tire letting out air. From the dome light she could see sand dunes covered with eelgrass.
“This is the last one,” Thatcher said. He checked the tire with the gauge and stood up, wiping his hands on his pants. He had removed his jacket and tie and his shirt was open another button at the neck.
“Where are we?”
“Dionis Beach,” he said. “Have you been here?”
Adrienne shook her head.
“Good,” he said. “Hang on.”
He drove the truck up over the dunes with abandon, bouncing Adrienne out of her seat. Thatcher whooped like a cowboy and Adrienne prayed she didn’t vomit. (She had a worrisome flashback from twenty years earlier: the Our Lady of the Assumption carnival, cotton candy, kettle corn, and the tilt-a-whirl. Her mother holding back her hair in a smelly Porta-John.) Then, thankfully, they were on the beach, and the water was before them, one stripe shining from the crescent moon. The beach was deserted. Thatcher parked the truck then opened Adrienne’s door for her. He spread a blanket on the sand.
“You came prepared,” she said.
“Lie down,” he said. “But keep your eyes open.”
“Yes, boss,” she said.
After getting gracefully to the ground in her dress, Adrienne looked at the stars. Thatcher lay on his side, staring at her. She closed her eyes. She could fall asleep right here. Happily, happily. Listening to the waves lap onto the beach. She heard Thatcher’s voice in her ear.
“I’m going to kiss you if that’s okay,” he said.
“It won’t be our first kiss,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I let one slip at the restaurant. I thought about apologizing to you for that, but I didn’t feel sorry.” And with that, he kissed her. One very soft, very sweet kiss. The kiss was fleeting but it left a big ache for more in its wake. Adrienne gasped, taking in the cool sea air, and then Thatcher kissed her again. Even softer, even shorter. The third time, he stayed. They were kissing. His mouth opened and Adrienne tasted his tongue, sweet and tangy like the lime in his drink. She felt like she was going to burst apart into eighty-two pieces of desire. Like the best lovers, Thatcher moved slowly-for right now, on the blanket, it was only about the kissing. Not since high school had kissing been this intense. It went on and on. They stopped to look at each other. Adrienne ran her fingertips over his pale eyebrows, she cupped his neck inside the collar of his shirt. He touched her ears and kissed the corners of her eyes, and Adrienne thought about how she had come right out with the truth about her mother at dinner and how unusual that was. And just as she began to worry that there was something different this time, something better, of a finer quality than the other relationships she had found herself in, she and Thatcher started kissing again, and the starting again was even sweeter.
Yes, Adrienne thought. Something was different this time.
How much time passed? An hour? Two? Of lying on the blanket kissing Thatcher Smith, the man who had handed her a new life on this island. Adrienne felt herself drifting to sleep, she felt him kiss her eyelids closed-and then suddenly, like a splash of icy water, like a bolt of lightning hitting way too close, like the foul smell that wafted from the restaurant garbage, there came a noise. From the car. Thatcher’s cell phone.
He pulled away. Checked his twenty-thousand-dollar watch in the moonlight. And ran for the truck.
He took the call standing in the deep dark a few yards behind his truck. Which was smart, because if he’d been closer, Adrienne would have yelled at whomever was on the other end. How dare you spoil my night!
Thatcher snapped the phone closed as he walked back toward Adrienne who was now sitting up on the blanket, headache threatening.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said.
“That was Fee.”
“Fiona? What did she want?”
“It’s twelve thirty. My dinner is ready.”
“Your dinner is ready,” Adrienne repeated flatly. “Your dinner is ready?”
“We eat together every night,” he said.
“Yes, except tonight you’re on a date with me. Tonight you ate with me.” As soon as she said the words, she realized he hadn’t eaten-he had barely touched his food. Because he knew all along that he was going back to the Bistro. To eat with Fiona. “Take me home,” Adrienne said. “Take me home right now.”
“You’re tired anyway,” he said. “You were practically asleep.” He tried to reach for her but she climbed into the truck and made a point of slamming the door in his face. She fastened her seat belt and when Thatcher got in, she stared out the windshield at the black water of the sound.
“Don’t be mad,” he said.
“This is weird,” Adrienne said. “You going back to have dinner with her. It’s strange.”
“I realize it must seem that way.”
“She loves JZ,” Adrienne said.
“What do you know about it?” he asked.
“I saw them together yesterday,” Adrienne said. “She left with him. She loves him.”
“She does love him,” Thatcher said. “But what I asked was, what do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” Adrienne admitted. “She was coughing and he picked her up and held her.”
“Okay,” Thatcher said, as if he’d made some very important point. He started the truck and eased them out over the dunes, the truck rocking gently this time, as gently as a cradle.
He pulled into her driveway by quarter to one.
“Don’t bother getting out,” Adrienne said. “I can see myself in.”
“I’m walking you to the door,” Thatcher said. He returned to his persona of old-fashioned suitor and took her arm. She had forgotten to leave on any lights and so the cottage was pitch-black. As they stood at the doorway, Thatcher touched the strap of her blue dress. Adrienne knew she should thank him for the date; he’d gone to a lot of trouble. But she was angry, incredulous, defiant. His dinner was ready!
He leaned in to kiss her and she let him. She thought maybe she could keep him. Maybe his dinner would go cold and Fiona would have to throw it away. They kissed and kissed; Adrienne had never felt such urgency.
“Stay with me,” she said.
He pressed her against the door frame and for the first time she felt his body right up against hers and it was an even better feeling, if that were possible, than the kissing. She could feel herself winning, she could see the future: his shirt coming off, her blue dress dropping into a silk puddle on the floor, the two of them entwined in Adrienne’s bed. Caren’s shock the following morning at the espresso machine when Thatcher joined her for a short black. But then, just as Adrienne knew he would, he surfaced from the pull of her desire with a gulp of air like a man who had been drowning.
“Go,” Adrienne said.
And he went.
6
The Wine Key
How did men do it?
It was ten minutes to six on Thursday night, 101 covers on the book, and Thatcher actually had the gall to knock on the door of the ladies’ room where Adrienne was brushing her teeth and deciding whether or not to quit.