“We’re all afraid.”
“Not you.”
“Of course I am,” says Gertie, and then she repeats it: “OfcourseI am. I’m as afraid as anyone.”
“Another drink?” Biceps is in front of them again. Did he teleport from the other end of the bar?
“I think I should get this one home.” Gertie still has her hand on Timothy’s and he senses, or maybe he sees out of the corner of his eye, somebody take a photo of them with a phone: one of the two remaining customers. Had he not felt foggy from the bourbon he might have moved his head back and forth at just the right time to cause the photo to come out blurry, but he’s too comfortable, Gertie’s hand feels too good. “You’re not driving, by the way,” Gertie adds. “And I’m not leaving my new moped here. So you can get on the back. We’ll squeeze.”
“But Floyd’s jeep...”
“We’ll come back for Floyd’s jeep later, when you’re sobered up. Or tomorrow. The last thing we need is a DUI on the record of the great Timothy Fleming.”
“I won’t fit,” he grumbles.
“Oh, you’ll fit. I’ll see to it.”
Gertie is surprisingly adept on the moped, steering them through the dicey intersection with Corn Neck Road, along Ocean Ave, around the circle with the statue of Rebecca, which was named for the Bible’s Rebecca at the Well and installed in 1896 by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
“Sorry, Rebecca,” Timothy whispers to her. He imagines he can see disappointment in her stone eyes, the stern set of her stone lips. Drink more water, she’d say if she could talk. He thinks about his ego. By the time they are heading up the hill on Spring Street and on toward Mohegan Trail, those thoughts have vanished, and he’s very aware of his hands on Gertie’s waist, ostensibly for balance.
Inside the house, Timothy is suddenly shy. Or maybe he just needs another drink. The worst part about day drinking is the headache that hits you immediately upon stopping; the only way to do day drinking correctly is to keep drinking until it is no longer day. Which, of course, it no longer is—but there is still a good deal of the night to contend with.
In the kitchen he stands for a moment at the window, pretending to take in the view, but in reality gearing himself up for a proposition. “Should we open the rum?” he asks, presenting the idea as though it has only just occurred to him, although in fact he’s been thinking about it since Rebecca stared him down. “The fancy rum, from Blake?”
She’s on him so quickly he scarcely knows what happened. “I don’t think we need the rum,” she says. She kisses him long and hard, and he puts his hands on her waist, and then he lets them fall lower, and she allows this too—even encourages it, he thinks—and then they are stumbling down the stairs, horny as a couple of teenagers, into Timothy’s bedroom, and when they are in the bed, under the sheets, and he’s inside her it’s like something entirely new and entirely familiar at exactly the same time. It’s amazing.
“Well!” says Gertie, after it’s done. “That was unexpected.”
“But nice?” He’s nervous, asking this. He’s starting to sober up a tiny bit.
“Oh, really nice!” she says. She lays a hand on his cheek. “Beyond nice. I’m just not sure what got into me. That was not what I anticipated three hours ago when I was buying a moped. It must have been the tequila.”
“It could be good publicity for the play,” he ventures. “Us, back together.”
“We’re not back together,” says Gertie. “We just had sex one time.”
“Well, sure,” says Timothy. “Of course. Nottogethertogether. But maybe if we just let it slip out—”
“Nope,” says Gertie, and she’s out of bed, searching for her dress and her bra and her panties, then putting everything on quickly, then pulling her hair into a bun on the top of her head and wrapping it with an elastic band that seems to have appeared out of the very air. “I’m adamant about this. Absolutely adamant. If you say anything I’ll deny the whole thing and that will make you look desperate, Timothy Fleming.”
“Oh,” he says, deflating. “Okay. I get it.” Even though the sheet is covering him he feels dramatically, unfairly exposed. “So we’ll never do that again, not ever ever ever?”
“I didn’t saythat.” And then she leans over the bed and she kisses him again. “Thanks.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” he murmurs.
“Not all of it,” she says. “Trust me.” And when he opens his eyes to see if she’s winking when she says that, he finds she’s gone.
Amy
It’s Greg who has the idea, the same week as her fight with Timothy. That Thursday, Greg and his crew are waiting for something or other to come in for their current job so everything is on hold until Monday. (Amy should know what the something or other is, but she was thinking about the disappointingly low advance ticket sales and wasn’t listening carefully when he told her.) Greg has smaller jobs to tend to—he’s got a list of customers a quarter mile long, and people who are waiting for estimates for new systems—but the next day is supposed to be A-plus weather. What if he takes the day off, catches the ferry over with Amy in the morning, and they take Sam out to breakfast or lunch?
“I can’t ask her that,” says Amy immediately. They’re doing the dishes together after dinner. Amy keeps stepping over the place in the kitchen where Kona used to like to lie, even though Kona has been gone for weeks now. Amy sees it as a sign of respect. She’s asked Bianca a couple of times how Kona is doing in her new home—secretly she’s hoping Bianca will pass on the phone number or email for the new owners so Amy can ask herself—but Kona’s adoption was “closed,” Bianca told her, and there will be no further contact.
Greg pushes his hands into the soapy water; they emerge witha clean saucepan, which he rinses and hands to Amy for drying. He looks perplexed. “Why can’t you ask her to go out to lunch?”
“I’m giving her space.”
