by Jancee Dunn
I was chatting with Hugh when I saw Charlotta Janssen approach Christian. She was tall and slight, with long, honey-colored hair that hung in a loose ponytail. She wore a simple slate-gray dress cut in a deep V in the front, exposing her fragile collarbone. She looked like a delicate woodland wildflower, a snowdrop among the showier suburban geraniums and impatiens. I had practically memorized her Classmate News entry. Moved to San Francisco and opened an art gallery…Travel all over the world…Saw Christian Somers in Paris, he is doing great.
They chatted, her smiling and repeatedly pushing a stray piece of honey-colored hair behind her ear in a way that I found supremely irritating.
I took a deep draft of my drink.
Sandy flopped next to me at the bar, damp with sweat. “Kurt can really dance,” she said, panting. “Who knew?” She gathered us together. “Bathroom break!” she announced.
We made our way to the bathroom in our comforting pack, inviting inquisitive stares just as we used to.
Sandy blundered into a stall and started peeing without fully shutting the door.
“Sandy! Close the door, for Christ’s sake,” Lynn said, loudly banging it shut. “What if someone else was in here?” All of us were drunk.
Kimmy applied lipstick. “Lily, you’re hooking up with Christian. It’s so obvious. Everyone’s talking about it.”
That pleased me, being talked about.
Sandy banged out of the bathroom stall. “Chicas!” she hollered. “C’mere. I have something to tell you all.” We gathered in a circle and she put her arms around us. “Love you guys. Love you!” We linked together in a sloppy group hug, swaying slightly. “B-double-f, double-a,” she said. “That’s what my kids say. It means ‘best friends forever and always.’” Sentimental tears moistened my eyes, but I tamped them back so my mascara wouldn’t run.
We rolled out of the bathroom in a gratifying unit, and my goodwill evaporated when I saw that Christian was still talking to Charlotta. How many times was she going to tuck her goddamn hair behind her ear? It was so contrived, one of those silly girl moves.
“Don’t get riled up,” Kimmy said quietly. “And if you’re out with him later, do not bring her up. Come on, now. Take a deep pranayama breath.”
I obeyed her, although it made me dizzy. Or maybe it was the thousand white-wine spritzers I had tipped back.
Hugh took the podium again. “It’s time for our awards ceremony,” he announced, as everyone shushed one another in an exaggerated way, followed by gales of laughter and more shushing. “The people have spoken and we have tallied the votes. No voter apathy here, ha ha. Our first award of the evening, for Most Changed, goes to Michelle Brennan.” She was the goth chick who had transformed into a Dallas housewife. She took the stage, grinning and waving, to scattered applause.
“Thank you, Michelle. Next up is Most Successful. It’s no surprise that it’s Greg Garcia.” Greg was the math nerd who had rented the white stretch limo for his arrival. He was now some sort of tech tycoon. He did exaggeratedly deep bows at the podium as he accepted his hastily written certificate.
“And now for the Least Changed, or what we might call the Fountain of Youth award. It’s a tie: Christian Somers and Lillian Curtis, come on up!” I tried to look nonchalant, but I was smiling like a pageant winner. Christian looked slightly abashed, but as we both strolled up to the podium the room erupted in wild cheers.
“Whoo!” Sandy hollered. “Whoooo!” She gave a piercing wolf whistle.
I looked around the room at the kaleidoscope of benevolent, grinning faces. We were the king and queen of the prom. Freeze this moment, I told myself, just as I had twenty years ago.
Later, after the last business cards were exchanged and DJ Noyz packed up his computer equipment to head back to Paramus, I told Kimmy, Lynn, and Sandy that I wasn’t going back to the hotel. Christian had offered to drive me home before he headed down to his parents’ shore house.
“I’ll come back in the morning and wake you all up,” I said. “Then we’ll hit the brunch buffet.”
“I’m going to pass out in about five minutes,” said Sandy. “You won’t miss anything.”
Lynn squeezed my hand. “Good luck,” she whispered. They encircled me for another dramatic, lurching hug and sent me off.
During the ride home, Christian and I talked to fill the silence, but neither of us could focus on the conversation. I only snapped back to consciousness when we reached the driveway. Christian turned off the car ignition and looked at me in the silence.
It’s happening. It’s moving forward and it’s happening.
He leaned forward and began to kiss me, and the world tilted upward. I was kissing him back and it was natural and easy and for the next half hour I was utterly unaware of anything around me. He had become an even better kisser since our teen years, and I tried not to imagine the many, many women who had brought him to that point.
The only thought I could coherently form was This is it. I had recaptured that elusive feeling I longed for, that had hung suspended, maddeningly out of my grasp, when I would hear a certain song that took me back. I had almost been able to grab it sometimes, but not quite. I was too old; too much had happened. But no: Tonight I was free and eighteen and had a roomful of people clapping for me, not for anything I did but simply for remaining a person who deserved admiration. I was kissing someone whom I never thought I would see again. He stepped out of my past, handsome and whole, and I was levitating with happiness.
Then my mind was empty again and I drifted in a contented haze until my parents’ porch light abruptly snapped on.
Christian pulled away. “Is that your father?”
I fumbled for my purse. “I should go.”
“Listen, what are you doing next weekend? Come to the shore.”
I was visited by another feeling I hadn’t had for years: I was a child playing hide-and-seek, hiding behind a curtain and on the verge of being found, so faint with excitement that I thought my insides were going to explode. “Sure,” I said. My father turned the light on and off. “Let me give you my number.”
He grinned. “555-2084.”
I floated up the driveway. My father was waiting in his pajamas with his arms folded, but I didn’t care. I could handle him. I could handle anything.
chapter twenty-three
Blearily I opened my eyes and tried to focus in the direction of my alarm clock before I realized that I was at Christian’s house. He was sleeping next to me in bed. He didn’t make a sound, nor did he stir. I was careful not to wake him, because I wanted to see his place in the daylight.
I blinked and eased myself up slowly. It was crucial that I had time to gather my thoughts and review the prior evening. I had driven down to Sea Girt in a fever of anticipation with my car windows cracked to let in the cold, briny air, waving to my mother as I pulled out of the driveway. How different our lives were: When my mom was thirty-eight, she had two young teenage daughters and was putting in long hours at work to pay for our college educations. Now I was thirty-eight and speeding down to the shore to spend a decadent weekend with a new guy.
Once I stopped to get coffee at a Go-Mart to draw out the journey and prolong the feeling of excitement. When I was a teenager, I had driven this route countless times at eighty miles an hour, fearful that I would miss something at a keg party, but this time I knew Christian wasn’t going anywhere. He was waiting for me, and we had all weekend.
He met me at the door with a lingering kiss and a glass of wine. “I want to take you to my favorite place for dinner,” he said. “Captain Bob’s Sea Catch. It’s a shack, but it’s right on the beach. A mile from here. I thought we could walk. Is it too cold? I’ll get you one of my sweaters.”
I stood in the hallway while he disappeared into a bedroom. His parents hadn’t changed the décor of the place one whit since the eighties: the photo collages of family vacations, the giant cognac snifter filled with matches from various beachside restaurants, the bookshelves crammed
with yellowed paperbacks and warped board games missing half of their pieces, the animal figurines made of shells with glued-on google eyes.
We walked through the quiet neighborhood. I loved the lonely, slightly wild feel of shore towns in the off-season. As we walked we looked through the windows of the gracious old houses and wondered aloud about who lived inside. The night grew chillier and I pulled on the brown V-neck he had given me and took surreptitious sniffs of the sleeve. It smelled like a musty beach house, but somehow I couldn’t stop breathing it in.
The shack made a defiantly cheerful spot on the dark windy beach, bright with music and good-natured locals. We ordered a leisurely feast of crabs and beer, while Christian filled me in on some of his neighbors. We were even joined for a while by the macho Captain Bob himself, wearing a shirt unbuttoned to the waist to reveal a leathery stretch of chest pricked with wiry white hairs.
When the crabs arrived I asked Christian about his family. I pretended not to know that Geordie was a hedge-fund manager who lived in Morristown and had three kids. Marc was an architect who commuted to the city from Summit.
“He has two kids,” said Christian, pouring another beer. “And my folks are retired, so they live for the grandkids. That’s all they talk about. They’re always on me to have kids. Especially my mother. The woman is relentless. You would think five would be enough, but I guess grandchildren are like crack.”
“So did you ever plan on having kids?” I asked casually.
He shook his head. “Not really. I guess I wouldn’t rule them out. I always had too much to do. In the past year I’ve been to Tokyo three times. That’s kind of hard if you have a kid.”
“Why did you go to Tokyo?”
He shrugged. “This Japanese soda company wanted to capture some of the American market. Didn’t work out.”
I loved the staccato way he spoke. “Do you ever get tired of all the traveling?”
He laughed. “Never. They put me up in nice places. I fly to a city, jump into a new culture, and learn all I can. I meet new people, get free stuff. There’s no downside, really.”
“What about your family? Don’t you miss them?”
He picked open a crab and pushed it toward me. “Sure, I do. But they’ll always be there. And my folks have their hands full with Geordie and Marc.”
Many beers later, our walk back to the house was unsteady. As was my vow not to have sex with Christian for at least the weekend.
As I lay motionless in bed, I surveyed his parents’ bedroom—the polyester floral bedspread, the wicker chairs, the glass lamps filled with dusty seashells. Christian had taken over the room and blotted out his mother’s vacation-home décor with his things, although there was still a prescription bottle for his father’s acid reflux medication on the wicker bedside table. His mother’s vanity table had turned into his makeshift office, which he had covered with a laptop computer, a stack of notebooks, and a flurry of Post-it notes. A jumble of luggage was piled in the corner, exploding with pants and socks and CDs and books. I squinted at a book title, trying to read it from across the room.
The silence was broken by the jangle of the phone on the bedside table next to Christian. He grunted and felt for the receiver.
“Yeah?” he mumbled. I could hear a man’s calm voice as Christian sat up and stretched. “Yeah, you told me about that. I know. Get the oil tank refilled.” More talking. “I’ll call, Dad. It’s the weekend. It’s closed. They just send the bill to you, right? Uh-huh. Right, winterize the windows. I saw the note.”
I watched his face, waiting for him to look at me and roll his eyes or smile. “I’m not turning off the phone yet, I told you. I can’t just use the cell phone. It doesn’t always work down here. Listen, I’ve got to go. No, no, just tell Mom I’ll talk to her later. Okay. Bye.”
He hung up and rolled over to give me a kiss. “Are you as hungover as I am?” He groaned and then got up and put on some track pants. His muscled stomach was as trim as it had been when he was a teenager. “I’m going to go for a run. I pass a bagel place on the way back. Do you want me to get you something?”
I smiled. “Why don’t I make you breakfast?”
He put on his sneakers. “I don’t know what’s in there, but my mom does like to cook. Check the freezer. They put everything in there because of the bugs.” I wanted him to kiss me again, but he was in running mode.
He left and I put on my clothes and crept downstairs, shivering. I opened the fridge and saw eggs and milk. The eggs were only a few days expired. The pantry was full, even if some of the boxes were a little old. Where were the cookbooks? I looked for a phone to call Vi for a recipe. I knew that she would also want the details, and I was dying to tell somebody.
“Good morning,” Vi sang.
“Vi? Is that you? You never answer your phone.”
“I sent Mrs. P out for papayas, so it’s just me and the dogs. I’m in a tropical mood! It’s so dreary today. Where are you?”
I clutched the phone harder as a thrill passed through me. “I’m at Christian’s,” I whispered.
“Lillian! It’s awfully early. Tell me you didn’t spend the night.”
“I did.”
“Remember what I told you? If a man can’t be bothered to wait for two weeks, he’s not worth having.”
“We didn’t do it,” I lied. “Listen, I’ll tell you the details later, but I wanted to get a recipe from you. I have twenty minutes to make breakfast and not much to work with. I’m at a beach house.”
“Have you got eggs? Milk? That sort of thing?”
“Yes.”
“How about bourbon?”
I searched the pantry and produced a dusty bottle. “Yes.”
“Then I have the perfect thing: Man-Catcher French Toast, from my cookbook. It has about ten thousand calories, but as you know, mine is not a cookbook for dieters.”
From 1965’s Lights, Camera, Cook!
Vi Barbour Shares Fifty Mouthwatering Recipes from
the World’s Most Glamorous Gals That Will Make You
the Leading Lady of Your Next Dinner Party!:
I have made no secret that I am very liberated, but I do love to cook. When I have company I serve dishes that my guests will dig into with relish, like a juicy steak with scads of mushroom gravy and fresh rolls dripping with butter. And my guests would be sorely disappointed if I did not serve my signature Cherry Fantasia for dessert!
Does comfort food bring you happiness? You’d better believe it! As my girdle will attest, I have a weakness for good food. Ever since I was knee high to a French bread loaf, my favorite scent has been vanilla extract. I spoil those around me with a groaning sideboard of specialty dishes. Food is love, so lavish it on friends and family!
“Ooh, I love your French toast,” I said. “Will you read me that one?”
“Surely. I call it a man-catcher, but it looks as though you’ve already caught one.”
“We’ll see. When I’m safely at my folks’ house, I’ll call you, I promise.”
She read me the recipe and then said, “While I have you on the phone, I’m going to be frank. It’s time you came back to work. How about giving me a date?”
I thought for a moment. “When will your patience run out?”
“I would say about three weeks.”
“Done. I should go, Vi. Thank you for this.”
I had the French toast cooking when Christian returned holding two cups of coffee. He put them on the table, quickly crossed the room, and enfolded me in a sweaty hug.
The rest of the weekend slipped by in a euphoric haze. We took out his dad’s motorboat and had lunch in the middle of the ocean, huddled in blankets and sweaters as the cold waves lapped the sides of the boat. We often sat in comfortable silence, a relief after Adam’s endless analytical chatter. We took naps, brought beers to the beach to watch the sun set, and then made the trek back to Captain Bob’s, where I was pleased that the cap’n greeted me this time by name.
On Sunday
evening, after we had finished a spaghetti-and-meatball dinner and lay reading the paper, I said hesitantly, “I suppose I should get back tomorrow.” I sighed, sneaking a glance at him. “Back to reality,” I said, skirting around the fact that my “reality” involved sleeping in my childhood bedroom.
Christian continued to read the paper. “Maybe you could drop me at the train station,” he said. “I have to go to the office tomorrow. We’re starting a new campaign, and I don’t really know too much about it.”
“Sure,” I said cheerfully.
The next morning I left him at the train with a lingering kiss. “See you soon,” he said as he got out of the car, lean and sophisticated in head-to-toe black. His clothing was close cut from his stint in Europe, so he looked different from all the other rumpled men on the platform and drew all eyes as he walked. A hot bolt of possessiveness ran through me. I waited for Christian to turn and wave, but he saw someone he knew and fell into a conversation. Hating myself, I honked the horn and watched, satisfied, as he put up his hand.
chapter twenty-four
The next morning I awoke in my own bed and stretched luxuriously. For almost a minute, I groggily thought I had woken up to an ordinary day in my old room. I could hear my father humming as he made breakfast. Then memories of the weekend with Christian flooded in and I blushed, although I was alone. That delicious moment of recognition, that secret slide show you play over and over!
I heard my father’s heavy tread on the stairs. He rapped on the door as I wiped the grin from my face and tried to make just-waking-up sounds to hide my embarrassment.
