“Really?” She perks up, a sunny smile overtaking her face. “Jonah, that’s great! I’m so happy for you.”
I feel my face start to heat under her smile, and I mentally kick myself. I need to stop acting like a lovesick fool around her. I already know nothing good can come of that.
“Thanks. I need to find a band to record it with and book studio space, so not much is happening yet.”
“Well, if you need someone on the keys, let me know. I took lessons until I was at least nine,” Winnie says, clearly joking.
“Are you as good at the piano as you are at baton twirling?”
“Even worse,” she says, grinning still.
And damn me, I can’t help it, but I grin right back.
Winnie decidesto shower before dinner, and I watch her walk to the bathroom, my eyes glued to her back. I like the look of her in lounge clothes more than I expected—a lot more. My house is small, and from where I’m sitting in the living room, I hear her turn the water on. I imagine her undoing the zipper on her sweatshirt and slipping it off her shoulders. Her tiny pink shorts would come off next, leaving her completely bare.
In my fucking house. Barely twenty feet away from me. I groan and try to erase the image of her in my mind, but I hear the shower door close, and all I can think about is her hair getting damp, her face flushing in the heat, and the water running over her slick body.
I feel myself thicken in my pants, and I tug at the crotch of my jeans, trying to hide it. Winnie won’t necessarily be in there for a long time. Despite how enthusiastically she kissed me back at the Horseshoe the other night—and at our wedding, too—she probably doesn’t want to walk out of the shower and find me at half-mast.
I try to think about anything other than her wet, naked body. Then, I hear a soft sound that distracts me. It’s faint, and I can barely make it out over the sound of the shower. But it sounds like someone is singing, in a beautiful mezzo-soprano. I get up off the couch and stand by the bathroom door, feeling like a creep but needing to know where the sound is coming from.
I press my ear to the door and can tell that it’s Winnie. Not a speaker or a phone. It’s my wife. She’s singing “Over the Rainbow,” à la Judy Garland, and her voice strokes over the notes smoothly.
But when she gets to the line where Judy wonders why she can’t fly over the rainbow as well, she can’t seem to finish it. She trails off, almost like she’s too afraid—or too sad—to finish the phrase.
It’s clear that Winnie’s talent isn’t baton twirling. It’s this. It’ssinging.For some reason she lied about it to me, and I’m determined to find out why.
22
WINNIE
The next morning,I wake up bright and early as usual. I head into the kitchen, determined to make enough coffee for both meandJonah to have some this time.
As I’m grinding the beans in the fancy-pants grinder Jonah has, I notice a book on the island counter. It’s a biography of Judy Garland, with a picture of her as Dorothy on the cover. That’s weird. How did Jonah know I liked Judy? And how did he just have this book?
I set the coffee machine to brew, and then flip through it. It looks pretty interesting and despite my love of her music and films, I’ve never read a book about her. I glance at the title again.Rainbow: The Stormy Life of Judy Garlandby Christopher Finch.
Oh. Damn it. He definitely heard me singing in the shower last night—that’s why this book is here. I got into the habit of singing in the shower long ago. Our house in Birmingham was large (because my money paid for it), and I had an en suite far enough away from my parents’ bedroom and the living room that I could sing in the shower without them hearing.
If I sang anywhere my dad could hear he’d get annoyed and say it was interfering with whatever he was watching ontelevision. And my mom would offer endless critique—despite the fact that she’s tone deaf. So I sang in the shower, because that was my only chance to sing just for myself.
Last night, I wanted to see if it still hurt too much to sing. And it did. I couldn’t get through all of “Over the Rainbow.” I assumed Jonah wouldn’t hear me over the sound of the water, but this book tells me I was wrong.
“That’s a good book.”
I turn and find Jonah watching me from the living room. He’s still rumpled from sleep. He’s also not wearing a shirt, and I get my first full look at the ink across his arms and torso.
“You’ve read this?” I ask.
“I read a lot of biographies of musicians.” He walks into the kitchen and pulls the coffee pot out of the machine.
“Hey! That’s not done yet.”
The smell of burning coffee fills the room as drops hit the hot plate. But Jonah doesn’t seem to care, he just fills his cup up and then sticks the pot back in.
“If I’m to be civil in the morning, I need coffee. Otherwise I’ll bite your head off.”
“I noticed that the other day.” I move past him to get my own mug, the ties of my silk robe brushing against him as I do. He inhales sharply, and I take a step backwards. Maybe he also likes his space in the morning.
