“How long will you be visiting your brother?” I asked.
My gaze was transfixed by Matt’s hands on the wheel. They were thick, strong, callused hands – the hands of a builder – and yet I remembered so clearly how they had once held a pen…
“Not very long,” he replied.
I turned toward him. “How long?”
“A week or so. Gordon bought a boat a couple of years ago, and he’s letting me take it out before he brings it in for the winter.”
“He has a boat? What kind?”
“A sloop. Thirty-six feet. It’s at Marblehead.”
I tipped my head back on the seat. “That sounds great. I haven’t been sailing since high school. Can you believe that?”
He looked at me with surprise. “Why not?”
“Dad got rid of the boat last year. He wants a new one. So you’re on vacation just for this week?” I asked.
“Yeah. My boss is really good. He gives me time off whenever I need it. I don’t get paid for it though.”
“You can pull over right here.” I pointed toward an empty parking spot on the main street.
Soon we were out of the car and splashing through puddles again, ducking through the rain, hurrying into the pub.
The door swung shut behind us. Inside, it was warm and dry and smelled like stale beer.
It was quiet for a Saturday. There were only a few people in the circular booths along the side wall. One older man sat alone at the bar hugging a tumbler of whisky in both hands. The bartender was filling two glasses of beer at the taps.
I removed my coat and followed Matt to the back, where we slid into a booth. The waitress came by and took our orders. As soon as she was gone, we sat forward and folded our arms on the table.
“It’s so good to see you,” I said.
“You, too.”
“Are you still writing?” I had been waiting until now to ask.
He casually shrugged. “Here and there. I sold a short story to a magazine a couple of years ago.”
“No kidding. That’s great. Was it a story I would know?”
A stupid question. I hadn’t read anything of his in years. It was probably something he’d written after he’d left home.
“No,” he replied. “I don’t know where all those old stories are. In a box somewhere I suppose, unless my dad burned them. Anyway, I was just a kid then. I can’t imagine they were any good.”
“I thought they were. So you wrote this story in Chicago?”
He nodded.
“I’d love to read it sometime. Do you have any copies of the magazine?”
“A couple.”
“Will you send one to me?”
“Sure.”
“Promise me,” I firmly said.
“I promise.”
Our beers arrived, and we clinked glasses.
“To old friends,” I said.
“Old friends.”
We both took generous sips, and I discreetly wiped the foam from my upper lip.
“Have you written anything else lately?” I asked.
He set down his glass. “I started a novel a couple of years ago, but I haven’t finished it.”
“Why not? You should.”
“We’ll see.” He leaned back and stretched his arms over his head, staring at me mischievously. I felt that old spark of excitement that came from not knowing what he was going to say or do next.
“So you and Peter…” he teasingly said, as if they were twelve years old again. “He always did have a thing for you, even when we were kids. He used to watch you from his bedroom window, you know.”
“He most certainly did not!” I made sure to convey the proper degree of shock, even though I was fighting not to laugh.
“I caught him at it once.” Matt picked up his beer and toasted me, as if to say “no joke.”
I was still smiling. “Well, nothing happened between us until after you were gone.”
He swallowed a big gulp. “Either way, I always knew you’d end up together. It was inevitable.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You couldn’t have ended up with me. God help you if you had.”
I leaned closer and found myself staring at his lips. “That’s poppycock.”
He looked at my lips, too, then spoke earnestly. “It’s the truth and you know it. You were lucky Peter was always around to keep you out of trouble. Without him, you and I might have gotten into a few scrapes, because we both know I was a bad influence.” He squinted at her. “And you were always teetering right on the edge.”
The waitress came by. “How is everything?”
“It’s fine, thank you,” Matt answered, while I remembered those long ago days.
I lifted an eyebrow and spoke in quiet, husky voice. “So are you still a bad influence?”
The small crowd at the booth behind us exploded with laughter, but Matt and I never took our eyes off each other.
“In some ways, maybe,” he replied. “In other ways, no. I had to grow up eventually.”
As did I, because we couldn’t ride our bikes around town and spin on tire swings forever.
I took another sip of beer.
“You’ve done well, Cora,” he said. “You should be proud.”
“I guess.”
“You guess? What’s there to guess at? You earned a scholarship to one of the best schools in the country.”
The jukebox flipped a record and began to play.
When I didn’t answer, Matt leaned forward. “Talk.”
“It’s complicated,” I tried to explain.
“How?”
I realized I was looking at his lips again, studying all the moist creases. “Everything seems perfect on the surface,” I told him, “but sometimes I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, or where I really want to be, and I’ve always had this strange unexplainable urge to escape from wherever I am, because nothing seems quite enough, and I feel incredibly frustrated sometimes, like there’s more to life out there somewhere, but I don’t know what it is, or where it is. Do you ever feel that way?”
I had never said any of that to Peter. I couldn’t imagine it. He would never understand.
“You have no idea.” Matt spread his arms wide. “Look at me. I’ve screwed up plenty in my life so far, and I know what everyone thinks – including you. That I didn’t live up to my potential, that I could have been so much more if I’d only applied myself. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that, and now, sitting here at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I know that everyone was probably right. I could’ve done more, been more, but I didn’t, and I’m not. Now I have to accept that I never really accomplished anything. So yes, I feel frustrated, more than you know.”
The people at the table nearest to them rose from their chairs, pulled on their coats, and chatted while they walked out of the pub.
“You sold a story to a magazine,” I said. “That’s something to be proud of. And you enjoy your work, don’t you? Building houses?”
“I like it enough. But there are other things I wish I had done differently. Maybe I should’ve…” He stopped and shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s no point in having regrets, is there? All they do is eat away at you.”
I was surprised we were saying all this to each other before the food had even arrived, when we hadn’t spoken in almost six years. Anyone who knew our history would call us strangers now, but at the same time, no one – not one single person in the world – could ever really know our history.
A memory flashed in my mind, of how it felt to sit with him on the beach with my head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around me while we listened to the surf. I remembered it as if we had done it only yesterday, and could almost feel his arms around me – all the same emotions, the easiness and contentment. I was tempted to slide along the half-moon seat and link my arm through his.
“It’s never too late,” I said, struggling to remember my situation, “to turn your life around, Ma
tt. You’re only twenty-two. You can still do something more, once you figure out what it is you want to do, whether it’s to write novels or something else. That’s the hardest part, I think. Figuring it out. I’m not sure I have yet.”
He stretched his arm across the back of the seat. “You said you want to travel.”
“Yes.” I lifted me eyes. “And maybe I will.”
“Don’t say maybe. Just do it. Life’s too short. You don’t want to look back on everything someday and regret all the things you didn’t do. You said yourself that you were frustrated. Go find out how to fix that.”
There was a clatter of cutlery and plates as the waitress cleared a table on the other side of the pub.
“Maybe you need to do that, too,” I told him.
“Maybe I’m doing it right now,” he replied.
My heart began to beat erratically. “How so?”
“By coming back here. Seeing you.”
I sat motionless, staring into his clear blue eyes. All I wanted to do was reach out and touch his hand, but instead I wrapped my hand around my beer glass and took a long, slow sip.
The waitress arrived with our meals and set them down on the table. As soon as she was gone, Matt reached for the ketchup bottle.
“You look pale,” he said.
“Well this is strange, being here with you.”
“Why is it strange? We’re old friends.”
I picked up my fork and poked at my French fries.
We were quiet for a long time, and I swallowed thickly over a lump that had lodged in my throat.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” Matt said, sitting back.
Terrified suddenly that he was going to suggest he drive me back to the dorm right now and be on his way, I jostled for the courage to say what was really on my mind.
“No. I’m glad you came. I’ve thought about you so many times over the years, even though I tried hard not to. I’ve wondered about you and hoped you were happy. Have you been? Apart from being frustrated, I mean.”
He gazed at me intently. “You want the truth?”
I nodded.
“Then the truth is no. I’ve never really been happy.”
His answer cut me to the quick. “Why not?”
“Too many regrets.”
I swallowed uneasily. “I have some of those, too.”
He looked at me for a long time as if he understood, but it was pointless because there was nothing to be done about it.
Was it true? Was there really nothing to be done about regrets?
We sat together in silence after that, eating our dinners without talking, while the rain outside continued to fall.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked after a while when the jukebox stopped playing. It was a bold question, but I wanted to know.
“I’ve had a few over the years,” he said. “Nothing to write home about, though. But you and Peter, you’ve been together for a while.”
“Yes.” I paused. “He’s waiting for me to finish school so I can come home and we can get married.”
Matt tilted his head to the side. “You’re engaged. Officially?”
Another bold question.
“No, not officially. I don’t have a ring on my finger or anything – at least not yet – and I’m still not completely sure it’s the right thing.”
“Do you love him?”
I had a hard time swallowing. “Of course I do. It’s Peter we’re talking about.”
Matt nodded, then dug into his pocket for some change, slid out of the booth to go to the jukebox.
I watched him walk across the bar and stand before the list of songs, then let my eyes wander down the length of his body, from his broad shoulders beneath the black leather jacket to his narrow hips in those loose, faded blue jeans. He was as handsome as ever. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
He dropped a few coins into the slot, and they clicked down through the metal machinery. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the record flipping over and the needle touching the shiny black vinyl. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” began to play.
When I opened my eyes again, Matt was in front of me with his hand out. “Dance with me.”
Compelled to rise to my feet, I followed him onto the small dance floor. There was no one else in the bar now except for that old man hugging his whiskey.
My heart began to pound as Matt slid his arm around my waist and took hold of my hand, pulling it close to his chest. Gently, he stepped nearer, and I became aware of the heated rush of blood through my veins. I made every effort to commit to memory each sensation – the texture of his soft leather jacket where my hand rested on his shoulder, the feel of my lips close to his hair.
We moved slowly in rhythm to the music. Neither of us exchanged a word until it was over, and the jukebox clicked and flipped another record onto the turntable.
We stepped apart.
“The truth is,” I said, “I’m not even sure I want to get married. At least, not yet. There are so many things I want to do and experience. I don’t think I’m ready to just be a wife.”
“Cora.” He eyed me intently. “Whether you get married tomorrow or ten years from now, you will never be just a wife. You’ll always be you.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you.”
After we returned to the table, we began to talk of other things – my college classes, Matt’s job, our families. We split a piece of apple pie and lingered over coffee, talking and catching up on everything until the waitress approached with the bill.
We checked our watches and realized we’d been sitting at the table for four hours.
“Oh, God!” I exclaimed. “I have to get back before they lock the doors.”
“What if you don’t?” He grinned suggestively.
“Let’s not even think about it.”
As I gathered up my coat and handbag, I tried to remember a time in my life when the minutes and hours had passed so quickly. I thought of all the times I had gone for dinner with Peter. Very often we would sit in silence, watching other people eat, talking about the food but not much else. We had never spent four hours over a meal, not even when we’d first become a couple. We would spend time together walking or going places, but there was always so much silence.
Matt paid the bill and we left the pub. Outside, the rain had stopped. The air was fresh and mild. Streetlamps cast white reflections in the shiny dark puddles.
“Will you go back to your brother’s place now?” I asked as we walked to the car.
“Yeah.” Matt helped me into my seat, then circled around to his side. He got in and started the engine. A few seconds later, we were heading back to campus.
As we drove through the dark, quiet town, dread settled heavily in the pit of my stomach. He was going to drop me off, say goodnight, then I might not see him again for another six years. Or maybe never.
He flicked the blinker to turn onto the campus, and my heart began to race with panic. I felt almost sick to my stomach.
I laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t turn yet. Why don’t we keep driving for a bit?”
His gaze shot to my face. “What about your curfew?”
There was tension in his brow, as if he were experiencing the same horrible, gut-wrenching dread.
I held my wristwatch up to a streetlamp as we passed under it. “We still have some time. Not much, but a little.”
Matt took his foot off the brake and pressed on the gas. “Where do you want to go?” His voice was low and serious. “Just tell me which way.”
Chapter Thirty-four
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just drive.”
Without a word, we continued west along Central Street. Every so often, Matt angled a glance at me. I met his eyes in the dark car and felt as if we were fugitives fleeing a crime, with no clue where we were going.
I tapped my heel repeatedly on the floor of the car – tap, tap, tap – and clutched my handbag on my lap. I twisted it, wrung it, squeezed it.
r /> “What are we doing, Cora?” he demanded at last, when we seemed only to be following the white headlight beams into the darkness.
“I don’t know.” We had no particular destination, and it felt wrong. “Maybe you should just pull over.”
He turned onto the shoulder of the road, where the tires crunched over the gravel, then he switched off the engine and lights.
The world – and all the raging thoughts crashing around inside my brain – suddenly grew quiet. Matt rolled down his window and rested his arm on the door. The cool night air drifted in, and I took a deep, cleansing breath. Crickets and frogs chirped in the wet ditch. Moonlight streamed in through the front window. We were surrounded by trees.
“Why did you stop talking to Peter and me back in high school?” I asked, feeling angry as I pushed my hair away from my face. “What was so special about Doug Jones and his old pickup truck? Was he more interesting than we were? Were you bored with us?”
The question had nagged at me for too long. I had bottled up that rejection years ago and stuck a cork in it, hidden it away. Now it was bubbling over.
He took his hand off the wheel and turned toward me. “I wasn’t bored. I just knew I was different from the two of you. I was fed up and headed for trouble. You were better off without me.”
“We didn’t believe that. At least I never did,” I insisted. “We were friends, no matter what, and maybe if you had stayed with us, you wouldn’t have gotten into trouble in the first place, and you wouldn’t have…” I stopped.
“Wouldn’t have what? Left town?” He gazed out at the night. “I needed to be on my own,” he explained. “That’s all it was. I had to get away from my father, who took some kind of perverse pleasure in beating the crap out of me.” He paused. “I just couldn’t be part of that group we’d become.”
“But you joined another group – Doug and his idiotic friend. I don’t even remember his name.”
Matt shook his head. His eyes held no expression. “They were both assholes. I never thought otherwise.”
“Then why were you friends with them? Why not us?”
God, I sounded like a pathetic, spurned lover, as if he had cheated on me and abandoned me. But I was not his lover. It had never been that way between us.
But what was it, exactly? There had never been a word for it. There still wasn’t.
I covered my forehead with a hand and shut my eyes. “I’m sorry, Matt. I’m acting like a fool. It doesn’t matter what happened back then. It was a long time ago.”