“I…” he said.
Her skin prickled, her sweat drying in the cool night air. Shit! she thought. Shit, shit, shit!
“I love you, too,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the first second I saw you.”
Adrienne tried to speak but the noise she made sounded like water trying to pass through a clogged drain. What was he saying?
Finally, she managed a whisper. “You mean, in the parking lot?”
“My heart fell on its knees in front of you. I thought maybe I could wait tables. Someone told me it was a piece of cake. Your purple jacket. Your rosy cheeks. And then you inhaled that breakfast like you hadn’t eaten in three days. My heart was prostrate at your feet.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’ve loved you since that very first morning.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You can ask Fiona,” Thatcher said. “After you left I went back into the kitchen and told Fiona that I had fallen in love with a woman named Adrienne Dealey and that everyone else would fall in love with her, too.”
“You said that to Fiona?”
“I did.”
Adrienne thought back to her first conversation with Fiona when Adrienne told her the Parrishes wanted her to bring their bread.
Thatcher was right about you, then.
Right about me how? I mean, what did he say…
“Caren loves you. The Parrishes. Mario. Mario wanted to ask you out and I told him if he did, I would fire him. He didn’t speak to me for three days.”
“Stop it,” Adrienne said.
“You think I’m making it up,” Thatcher said. “I am not making it up. I love you…” His voice trailed off and Adrienne sensed the other shoe about to drop.
“But?” she said.
“But,” he said. He rolled onto his side so that he could look down on her. “The reason why I haven’t had a relationship in twelve years is because of Fee. There hasn’t been time to think about anyone else.”
Adrienne was silent.
“And I never met the right person,” he said, quickly. “You, Adrienne Dealey, are the right person. I love you. But I love Fee, too. Differently. She’s my best friend and has been for a long time.”
“I know that,” Adrienne said, trying not to let impatience creep into her voice.
“And sometimes, I don’t know how to handle things. I don’t know who to put first.”
That’s clear, Adrienne thought. She could tell Thatch was at a loss, like a teenager trying to figure it all out for the first time.
“I don’t have to be first,” Adrienne said, then she checked herself. Was she lying? Was she just trying to be brave? What had she learned earlier that night? That being first or second had nothing to do with love, really. Her father loved her, Thatcher loved her. Her father also loved Mavis, Thatcher also loved Fiona. That was okay, wasn’t it? It would have to be okay. “I understand.”
“You do?” Thatcher said. He sounded unconvinced, but hopeful. “Do you really?”
“I do really,” Adrienne said. She lifted her head to kiss him, and then, deciding she didn’t want to talk anymore lest she ruin the moment or change her mind, she closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.
The next morning at nine, Thatcher and Dr. Don went fishing on the Just Do It, Too. Dr. Don had offered the fishing trip up to Thatcher the night before and Adrienne was sure that Thatcher would decline, but instead he’d looked beseechingly to Adrienne. He could only go if Adrienne covered the phone in the morning.
“Go,” she’d said, though, really, the last thing she wanted was her father and Thatcher alone for three hours on a boat when the only topic they had in common was her.
She dropped them off at the docks in the morning. Pulling out of the A &P parking lot in Thatcher’s enormous truck, she almost ran over a family of four. Lack of sleep. Nerves.
She drove out to the airport to pick up Caren, who had called very early on a sketchy cell phone line and begged a ride. I don’t have a dime left for a taxi, she’d said. Adrienne found her standing on the curb in front of the terminal. Caren was wearing the same outfit she’d left in-her white jeans and black halter top. Her hair was down but tangled and messy and her clothes were rumpled. She looked like a half-smoked cigarette. And when she climbed into the cab of Thatcher’s truck, there was a horrible smelclass="underline" spoiled wine, rotten meat, a bad fart. Adrienne cracked her window.
“So,” she said. “How was it?”
“I drank too much. Smoked weed. Did a line of cocaine. Took X.”
“Does that mean it was good or bad?” Adrienne said.
“The concert was good. Are you kidding me? Sixth row for Mick Jagger? But that was the great beginning of something bad. I never even saw the inside of the Ritz. We left the concert and went to Radius. I had three martinis for dinner. Then we went to Mistral. Then a party somewhere in Back Bay where we all did coke. Haven’t been that stupid in many, many years. Then to Saint.” She eyed the dashboard. “I left Saint at six.”
“This morning?”
“Choked down a ricotta cannoli in the North End. I feel lousy.”
“So you haven’t slept.”
“Half an hour on the plane. I need a shower and a Percocet. My bed. Room-darkening shades. Six cups of espresso before I go to work.”
“That would be a start,” Adrienne said.
“Did you talk to Duncan? Was he upset? He didn’t call my cell.”
Adrienne gnawed her lower lip. Before she’d left the restaurant the night before, she had one more conversation with Duncan as he cleaned up the bar.
“I guess I won’t be seeing you at our house tonight,” Adrienne had said. “It’ll probably feel weird to sleep in your own bed.”
“Who said I’m sleeping in my own bed?” Duncan said.
“Where else would you sleep?” Adrienne asked.
“We’re going out,” Duncan said. He nodded toward Charlie who, after seventeen beers, was staggering near the front door. “Last call at the Chicken Box. For starters. And when you talk to Caren, feel free to tell her so.”
But Adrienne had no desire to tell Caren so. Adrienne had too much emotional work of her own.
“Well,” Adrienne said, “he asked a lot of questions about Tate.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Just about who he was.”
“You didn’t tell Duncan that Tate was gay?”
“Of course not.” Adrienne glanced at Caren. It was a hundred degrees out and the woman was shivering in her seat. “What do you expect from Duncan, anyway?”
“The same thing every woman expects,” Caren said.
“Which is what?” Adrienne was asking because she really wanted to know. Thatcher had said he loved her, but now what happened? Where did they go? What did they do?
“Which is this,” Caren said. She pointed to a white van from Flowers on Chestnut idling in their driveway.
Adrienne parked alongside the van while Caren bolted for the house. By the time Adrienne got inside, Caren had her face buried in what must have been three dozen long-stemmed red roses.
For me, Adrienne thought. Thatcher? Dad?
But the card was addressed to Caren. She held it in the air like a winning lottery ticket.
“He loves me,” she said.
By the time Adrienne was ready to leave for work fifteen minutes later, Duncan was carrying Caren down the hall toward the bedroom.
“Don’t ever take off on me like that again,” Duncan said. “You made me crazy. Wasn’t I crazy, Adrienne?”
“You were crazy,” Adrienne said. She inhaled the deep perfume of the roses. Proof that there was more than one way to skin a cat. Adrienne wondered if her father and Thatcher were talking about her. Two hours left.