Public Displays of Affection

  Would Tuesday work for her?

  She sighed. Even if all that were true, what exactly would she tell Hank and Matt? That Mommy had a special new friend? The thought made her queasy.

  She chewed on the end of the pen, then stopped, her mouth falling open in shock. This was the end! This moment marked the official death of her sexual fantasy life. For thirteen years she’d built a personal ritual around a mystery man, a man who lived only in her memory and imagination, and now the real man had to move next door—in the flesh—and ruin it!

  God! Couldn’t a woman even masturbate in peace?

  She flipped back through her journal, finding a poem she’d worked on a few months ago. The more she read, the more pissed off she became.

  All I’ve Got

  I’ll pretend it’s you

  Will you humor me?

  And for a while

  I will be free

  Sweat heat

  Fiery friction

  I will burn

  In my latex addiction

  I’ll burn and scream and writhe

  So hot!

  I’ll pretend it’s you

  Though I know it’s not.

  But it’s all I’ve got.

  Charlotte choked back a fresh batch of tears, took another swill from the water bottle by the bedside, and wiped her mouth. She needed to stay hydrated. She’d be sure to eat plenty of potassium tomorrow and take her vitamin B supplements. She’d do a three-mile loop at the park once she got the kids off to school. One thing she knew for sure—healthy food and fresh air had always helped to make anything survivable.

  She’d get through this as well.

  Charlotte closed the journal in her lap and folded her hands. Bonnie had been a good listener earlier that night and had kept her commentary to a minimum—just what Charlotte needed. The last thing she could have dealt with was her best friend expressing shock or disappointment or passing judgment.

  Bonnie had simply nodded a lot. Held her hand. Let her talk. And as the words had spilled from Charlotte’s lips, she felt somehow separate from the story she told her friend, as if it had happened to another woman.

  She supposed it had.

  After all, who is the same woman at thirty-five as she was at twenty-two? No one she’d ever met, that was for sure. On that day thirteen years ago, she’d been young and optimistic, ready to graduate, ready to get engaged, ready to start her life. She’d felt like she was ready to step out into the bright perfect world of her future.

  But somehow, right there in that convertible on the GW Parkway, it hit her like a cinder block to the forehead—Kurt Tasker would be the first and only man she’d ever have sex with. Sex—that dark territory she’d tiptoed around and shut her eyes against in order to stay a good girl—would be experienced with Kurt and only Kurt. He would define it for her. He would be her travel companion. Her tour guide. The only places she’d ever go would be the places he took her. Just him. One man.

  Forever.

  Even back then, had she known in her heart that it would be a no-frills excursion? Yes, if she answered honestly, she had. But at the time that had seemed a small sacrifice to make. After all, Kurt Tasker was good for her, just what she needed in so many other ways. And a woman couldn’t have everything, right?

  Charlotte recalled the conversation they’d had before he flew out to his interview at the Enquirer. Once again, it was Charlotte who brought up the subject of sex, only to be guided back to moral ground by Kurt. It was best to wait until they were married, he’d reminded her. It was the right thing to do. It would be worth the wait. They would enter into their covenant of marriage in God’s favor.

  Of course he’d been right, and she’d felt that familiar sense of guilt wash over her. What was wrong with her? Why did it tantalize her so much? Why wasn’t she as patient as Kurt? As in control of her desires?

  Then something happened that should have set off the warning bells. They’d been sitting at the gate, waiting for boarding to begin. Kurt had been reading the Sporting News, his fingers absently stroking the top of her left hand. She watched his big thumb trace the vein under her pale skin, let her eyes travel up his thick forearm to his biceps under the sleeve of his pinstripe Oxford shirt, then to his eyes the same pale shade of blue, moving from side to side as he read.

  She couldn’t help it. She loved the way he looked. She’d touched him everywhere, she’d had her hands on his bare flesh, and that one time things got “out of hand,” as Kurt referred to it, she’d even had him in her mouth.

  He was beautiful. He made her feel hot and soft and female. She wanted to have sex with him. She wanted him inside her. She wanted to surrender to the mysterious pull of sexual desire. And yet she admired him so for his restraint, his strong sense of what was right and wrong. He was such a good man.

  That’s when she’d said, “Kurt?”

  He’d looked up at her and blinked. “Hmm?”

  She’d cleared her throat. “How important is sex in a relationship, do you think?”

  His eyes went wide. “Charlotte—”

  “I’m not pushing. I’m just curious. Listen, if a relationship between a man and woman were like a whole pie—”

  “What kind of pie are we talking about? Apple? Boston cream?”

  She’d laughed. He could always make her laugh. “I’m serious.”

  He’d bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’m listening. We’re talking about a married man and woman, is that right?”

  She grinned. “Sure. A married couple. And the whole of their relationship is a Boston cream pie.”

  “Sounds good so far.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay.” Charlotte took a deep breath for courage. “Just how important is sex to them? How many pieces of the pie would have to be made up of good sex for them to be happy?”

  Kurt frowned and folded the Sporting News in his lap. “Are you talking about our pies, Charlotte?”

  Her heart beat fast. She licked her lips in nervousness. “Yes. My pie. Your pie. Let’s say each has eight pieces. How many pieces of your pie would have to be dedicated to sex?”

  “Okay.” She’d watched Kurt’s eyes travel over to the glass wall overlooking the taxiway. He turned to her. “Probably one slice.”

  Charlotte remembered that her mouth had opened and a sharp bolt of fear shot up her spine. Because, though she could never say it out loud, she’d just pictured five slices of sex. Okay, six—six big, sweet, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth pieces of sex.

  But she’d smiled at Kurt and said, “That sounds about right.” Then he’d boarded his flight to Cincinnati.

  It had been the first time she’d ever lied to him.

  Charlotte jumped from her bed and tucked the journal into her nightstand, locking the drawer, placing the key under the base of the reading lamp like she always did, thinking about what had happened three days later, when she went back to the airport to pick up Kurt. The day she met Joe.

  Charlotte walked toward her bedroom windows. She could see the tiniest slice of pink on the horizon. Another day was coming. Another day when she’d be mommy and business owner and widow. Another day that she would feel the undertow of loneliness and need, so strong lately she feared it would eat her alive.

  She dragged her fingertips along the cool pane of glass, remembering the miracle of letting go in Joe’s arms, how perfect it felt to release all the wildness and curiosity hiding inside her. She’d allowed a stranger to see how much passion lived in her, how hot she really was, and she’d felt real for the first time in her life. Free. Alive.

  Was it wrong to want that again?

  She stared at the Connor house—his house now—glowing in the pale daylight and heard a little voice inside her head whisper, Maybe just once more?

  Chapter Five

  The sun tried its best to cut through the blustery air, but Charlotte’s fingers still felt stiff and cold as she hunched over, trying to unravel the tangled pieces of string.

  “Here,
let me block the wind,” Bonnie said, hovering over her.

  “Mommy, hurry!” Hank called. “It’s almost the time I was born!”

  “Hang on. I’ve got it. There!” Charlotte straightened and held out three purple balloons to Hank, making sure her daughter held them securely.

  Charlotte then gave the three yellow ones to Matt, the blue one to Bonnie, and kept the red one for herself.

  She imagined that they made an odd picture out there on the knoll in the middle of the Minton Recreation Park, colorful balloons flapping in the wind. But it was Hank’s birthday, and this was where she wanted to launch her messages to Kurt, and the Tasker family custom was that you got whatever you wanted—within reason—on your birthday.

  Hank raised her face to her mother and grinned, her blue eyes sparkling. “Tell me again exactly what he said when I was born, Mama.”

  Charlotte was prepared for this part of the ritual, but being prepared didn’t make it any easier.

  “You came out screaming bloody murder,” she answered, just the way she knew Hank wanted to hear it.

  “A brat from the start,” Matt mumbled.

  “And your daddy took you from the doctor, tucked you close, and told you shake it off and get back in the game.”

  Hank’s face blossomed. “Then what happened next?”

  “You got very, very quiet. Then you punched Daddy in the nose with your fist.”

  Everyone laughed but Matt.

  “Can we just do this now, please?” he said, rolling his eyes while the laughter continued.

  “What time is it, Mama?” Hank jumped up and down in anticipation.

  “It’s eight after eleven, the exact time you were born. You ready, girly?”

  “Yep!” Hank turned her face to the sky, the wind slapping her bright orange hair out behind her. “I love you infinity much, Daddy!” she yelled, releasing the first balloon.

  They all watched it sail up, up, until it drifted over the trees.

  She turned to Charlotte and frowned. “But I don’t remember which note is in which balloon!”

  Charlotte smiled at her daughter, recalling how the kids had written three notes each addressed to “Daddy in Heaven,” and brought them to the party store. The nice lady had inserted the folded-up paper into their balloons before filling them with helium.

  “It doesn’t really matter, honey. Daddy doesn’t mind what order they’re in.”

  Hank nodded seriously, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m pretty sure that was the one where I told him I got in the majors this year.”

  “Stop the presses,” Matt said.

  “Dweeb,” Hank responded.

  “Okay, gang.” Charlotte put her hand on Matt’s shoulder and squeezed. “Let’s let Hank have her turn. Go ahead, birthday girl.”

  Hank raised her right hand and opened her stubby fingers, and the second balloon was off. “That was the one where I told him I missed him infinity much,” she said with a nod of certainty.

  Hank released the third purple balloon. “And that one said not to forget my ballet recital at two o’clock on June seventh.”

  Hank turned matter-of-factly toward her brother and offered him a gap-toothed grin. “Your turn, Matt.”

  Charlotte had to choke back her sob. One of the hardest lessons she’d learned in the last eighteen months was that the kids had their own way of grieving and it wasn’t necessarily her way. It seemed these concrete, simple things let them express their loss the way talking never could.

  Neither of them had ever wanted to talk much about their dad’s death. Charlotte recalled each long hour she’d ever spent in the worn blue wing chair of Reverend Williams’s office in the First Baptist Church of Minton, talking about Kurt. About her fears and hopes and emptiness. It had helped.

  But the day the reverend came to the house to chat with the kids, they both ran away, crying.

  Matt stepped forward then, causing Charlotte’s hand to fall from his shoulder. He let the first yellow balloon fly without comment, waited for it to climb, then released the other two in the same silence.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and stood still for a moment, finally turning his head toward his mother. He nodded and said, “Your turn, ladies.”

  Charlotte was struck by how grown-up he seemed in that moment.

  Bonnie stepped up and let her blue balloon take wing. She smiled and said, “Look out for all of us, Kurt.”

  Then it was Charlotte’s turn. Knowing she was under the watchful gaze of her friend and children, she took a steadying breath and raised her hand. A sudden gust of wind snatched the balloon from her grasp, sending it flying before she was ready.

  That struck her as somehow appropriate.

  “I miss you,” was all she could think to say.

  When Charlotte turned around, Matt and Hank were already laughing and running toward the playground equipment and their friends.

  “Have you tried the Internet?”

  Charlotte nearly spit out her coffee.

  Bonnie laughed a little and continued, leaning back on the park bench. “You know, I’ve read that Internet dating is the hottest way to meet people these days, and frankly, it sounds like the best thing to happen to male–female relations since the Pill.”

  Charlotte felt her eyes widen. It seemed that since she’d decided to confide in Bonnie about her once-in-a-lifetime fling, all her friend wanted to do was talk about men and sex.

  She’d obviously opened up a big can of worms.

  “Think about it.” Bonnie took a sip from her thermos cup as she watched the kids on the monkey bars. “The Internet lets you meet people anonymously and be totally upfront before appearance has any impact on anything! How freeing! It’s got to be better than bars.”

  Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “I don’t go to bars, Bon.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “I don’t need a man right now,” she lied.

  Bonnie tilted her head and studied Charlotte carefully, and the scrutiny made her uncomfortable.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you feel that way now, but someday you’re going to be ready for a man to come into your life again.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mama! Can we go to the duck pond?”

  Charlotte squinted in the sun, seeing a gaggle of kids running toward the old ice-skating pond on the other side of the park. Matt and Hank stayed behind, waiting for her okay. She smiled.

  “Go for it!” she said.

  “Is it the kids, honey? Is that what’s holding you back from dating again?”

  Charlotte bunched her lips together and wondered exactly how to answer her friend. Her children’s welfare had been her primary concern, of course, and she just couldn’t picture the awkward moment when she had to introduce Hank and Matt to a boyfriend. She didn’t want to do anything that would confuse them or threaten their fragile sense of safety. And okay—she had a few issues herself.

  “I’m just not ready” was all she could manage to say.

  “All right.”

  “I’m doing fine on my own.”

  “If you say so.”

  As she watched Bonnie’s eyes scan her face, full of affection and challenge, Charlotte felt the knot loosen in her chest. Bonnie Preston had lived a lot longer than she had. She’d stayed married to the same man for thirty-five years, raised two boys to adulthood, and was now a grandmother. She was a hard woman to fool.

  “Okay, Bon. I do fine most of the time. But it’s been kind of rough lately. There. I said it.”

  Bonnie’s hand patted her knee. “Are you ever going to say anything to him?”

  “Him who?”

  Bonnie tilted back her head and laughed. “I’m referring to Mr. Male Stripper, honey. Juicy Joe Mills. The man you’ve not been able to stop thinking about for thirteen years.” She grinned. “You know. Your new neighbor.”

  Charlotte blew out a breath and pulled her fleece jacket close to her chest. Springtime in southern O
hio could be as unpredictable as life itself—bright and balmy one day, biting and gray the next.

  “Crazy weather,” Charlotte said, attempting to change the subject.

  Bonnie shook her head, smiling. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Now that made Charlotte laugh. There were just so many bad outcomes from which to choose, and she’d already imagined them all in detail.

  “Well, let’s see….” She put down her coffee mug and began counting on the fingers of her left hand. “One, he doesn’t remember me and I’m completely humiliated, standing there saying things like, ‘Oh, come on now! Me? Naked? In the weeds? June 1991?’ “

  “I see what you mean.”

  “Or two, he does remember me and then tries to avoid me the whole time he lives here because he’s always considered what happened between us a huge mistake.”

  Bonnie frowned. “Honey, I’m not sure any man on the planet would consider what happened between you two a mistake. I think hours of hot, anonymous sex is something men generally approve of.”

  Charlotte kept right on going. “Or three, and this is the worst, Bonnie, let me tell you. He knows exactly who I am and expects me to do a repeat performance. You know, meet him three times a week for a roll in the pine needles.”

  Bonnie waggled her eyebrows.

  “You know I’m not like that.”

  “I know, honey.”

  “I’m not a slut.”

  “No one ever said you were, Charlotte.”

  “But maybe I could go over and talk to him.”

  “You could.”

  “I could get a feel for the situation.” That didn’t come out right and Charlotte scowled when Bonnie laughed. “Oh, forget it. What excuse would I possibly have to go over there?”

  “Borrow a cup of sugar.”

  “We don’t eat refined sugar.”

  “A cup of flaxseed, then?”

  “I think it’s best to just pretend he doesn’t live there. So far, it’s been a real easy thing to do because the man hasn’t set foot outside the house in three days, except to go on his deck.”