Eyes closed, breathing a struggle, she let the sweet sensations buffet her. Nothing had ever felt this good. No one had ever made her feel this good.
Only Cory could do this. Only Cory, the man she’d loved. The man who’d broken her heart.
A few tears scalded her eyes, but she blinked them away. What was happening right now had nothing to do with what had happened fifteen years ago. This was tonight. It meant nothing. It signified nothing.
It was just a moondance, her heartstrings playing soft and low.
Cory rose, sliding up until he was above her, his face close to hers. She lifted her head from the pillow to kiss him, then slid her hands down his strong, warm back to the tight muscles of his butt. He pressed into her, his penis hard against her abdomen. She brought her hands forward, wedged them between her body as his, wrapped her fingers around him and stroked. He raised himself, propping himself up on his arms, and rocked against her palms. Just a few strong thrusts and he was gone, coming into her hands, over her belly.
She was amazed that she could do this to him as quickly, as intensely, as he’d done it to her. Sure, he’d said she turned him on. But that was what a man who wanted sex said. A cagier, more subtle man might tell a woman she was pretty, or murmur that he desired her. He might spin some flowery lines, some sweet blandishments. Cory had always been blunt when it came to sex.
His body shuddered, his eyes squeezed shut, and then he sank down onto her, his semen slicking his body as well as hers. Maybe they weren’t adults, she thought with a faint smile as she recalled their reckless nights in the back seat of his mother’s car, his fly undone, his jeans shoved down enough to free him, his hands guiding hers until she knew exactly what he wanted, how he wanted it. Apparently, she hadn’t lost that knowledge.
How had they cleaned up back then? She vaguely recalled wads of paper napkins with restaurant logos on them. They’d stop at McDonald’s for soft drinks or Newport Creamery for ice-cream cones, grab a stack of napkins on their way out, and use them later. Once they’d started having sex, Cory would wrap his used condoms in a few napkins, and they’d toss the mess into a public trash can before he drove her home.
She had no fast-food napkins in her bedroom. But she had a bathroom, complete with all the towels and plumbing a sticky, post-orgasmic person could want.
As soon as Cory mustered enough energy to move, she slid out from under him, heading for the bathroom. She pulled the washcloth from where she’d draped it on the handle of the shower door and adjusted the sink faucets to a warm flow. She’d bolted from the bed too quickly, she knew. She should have lain there a while longer, enjoying the afterglow with him. But the afterglow carried love with it. It washed through the body and gathered in the soul, binding the lovers together.
She couldn’t let that afterglow overtake her. She couldn’t allow herself to feel love for Cory. He was only going to leave.
After a few minutes, he joined her in the bathroom. She watched him enter in the mirror above the sink. His hair was disheveled, his gaze a bit unfocused. She handed him the washcloth.
“Thanks,” he said. But he didn’t look at her, and she had the feeling he was thanking her for the hand-job as much as for the washcloth. Thanks for the good time, babe.
He probably didn’t want to feel the afterglow, either. He probably wanted to protect himself, to make sure she didn’t become clingy and demanding. As if he’d paid any attention to her demands fifteen years ago. She’d begged him to take fewer classes, to come straight home after his last class instead of engaging in his oh-so-important networking, to give her a break from their daughter and his mother. He’d argued that what he was doing was essential, it was for their future, and she should back off and let him do what he had to do.
She had. She’d backed all the way off to Brogan’s Point. And she’d never made a demand of him again. She’d never called him whining if he was late with a child support check. She’d never insisted that he take Wendy for a few weeks so she could go on a Caribbean cruise—but then, she never went on Caribbean cruises. The rare vacations she took, she brought Wendy with her—to Cape Cod, to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, and once, on a budget-crushing splurge, to Walt Disney World.
She would have loved to spend a few days in New York City with Wendy, visiting the museums, seeing a Broadway show, shopping—or at least window-shopping—at the famous stores along Fifth Avenue. But New York City belonged to Cory. The only shows Talia and Wendy wound up seeing together were high school musicals and a few productions at the North Shore Music Theater when touring companies passed through. She’d taken Wendy to see “Annie,” and for the next month Wendy had pranced around the house belting out, “Tomorrow! Tomorrow!” slightly off-key. Her singing ability was on a par with her violin playing. Thank heavens she hadn’t needed musical talent to get into college.
Next to her, Cory finished washing himself. He tossed the washcloth into the sink and turned to her. “Tally…”
She didn’t want him to hear what he might say. He had no aptitude for sweet talk. He wasn’t likely to say soothing things about how special she was, or how much the past half hour had meant to him. He was far more likely to say he’d had fun, and maybe they should do this again while he was still in town.
“I’ve got to do something with dinner,” she said, determined to cut him off before he said anything that made her hate him. “We left all that food out on the table. It’s probably going bad.”
He eyed her quizzically, then smiled. Maybe he was relieved that she was sparing him the need to make a romantic speech. “Sure,” he said. “You don’t want rotten food.” Without sparing her another look, he strode out of the bathroom and gathered his clothing from the floor.
Chapter Ten
Gus recognized the guy as soon as he entered the Faulk Street Tavern. He wasn’t a local, but he’d been there last night with a woman from town. Good looking fellow, with neatly trimmed dark hair and a rangy build. Beer for him, wine for her. They left without finishing their drinks.
God knew, Gus could happily listen to Van Morrison sing anything, any time, as many times as he wanted. But the couple had been spooked by “Moondance.” Gus had seen it happen enough times to know the jukebox had been sending them a message.
Whatever the message was, the guy was alone tonight. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, surveying the place. It wasn’t too packed. Monday was traditionally a slow night. People were still recovering from the weekend.
She busied herself stacking clean glasses on the racks behind the bar. Usually Manny took care of that, but he was in the kitchen, running batches of wings through the oven at the moment. They were nothing special; Gus bought them in bulk from a distributor and just reheated them. They came already glazed in traditional barbecue sauce. She didn’t offer a variety of flavors; that would only complicate things. She probably ought to ramp up her food offerings a bit, providing more than the wings, flatbread pizzas, stuffed potato skins, sliders, nachos, pretzels, popcorn and bar mix. But most people came to the tavern to drink, not to eat. She served food only to keep them from leaving. Patrons were more likely to order a second drink, or a third, if they had something to munch on.
Yesterday, the couple had sat at a booth. Today, alone, the guy wandered over to the jukebox and scrutinized it with an intensity that shook Gus a little. It was a curiosity piece, for sure, and beautiful to behold. But the way he looked at it, as if memorizing every line and curve of it, every button and bezel, unnerved her. After a minute, he ran his fingertips over the dome-shaped top and down the sides. If it was a woman, she would have slapped him for being so fresh.
Somehow, he seemed to want to “see” the machine with his hands the way he was seeing it with his eyes. Whatever. Gus polished it every few days. His fingerprints would wipe off.
After communing with the jukebox for a while, he sauntered across the room to the bar. He glanced down the row of stools, then straddled one and smiled at Gus. “What can I g
et you?” she asked.
“A beer. No, make it a bourbon. Straight up.” She listed the labels she carried, and he asked for a Maker’s Mark. Even as she filled a glass with the sweet-scented liquor, she noticed him jiggling one foot. His eyes took on a distant look, as if he was viewing something that didn’t exist.
He didn’t seem drunk, though. Gus didn’t have to worry about him being over his limit, at least not yet.
She set the glass and a bowl of bar mix in front of him. He nodded, circled the rim of the glass with his index finger, then said, “That jukebox played ‘Moondance’ last night. You know the song?”
She was tempted to tell him how old she was. Of course she knew “Moondance.” She knew every oldie the jukebox had ever spewed out. “It played ‘Moondance’ twice,” she reminded him, recalling the irate young woman who’d wanted her quarter back when the jukebox had repeated the song.
“As if once wasn’t enough,” he muttered, then took a sip of his drink.
He seemed to understand that the jukebox had played “Moondance” for him and the woman he’d been with. Yet he was alone tonight. Maybe the jukebox was losing its touch. “Is there a problem?” she asked gently.
“I came to town to take care of some business and see my daughter graduate from high school. And suddenly that song plays, and my life is…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Gus had gotten snagged by the first thing he’d said. “You’re old enough to have a daughter graduating from high school?” He didn’t look much older than her sons, who were nowhere near old enough to be the fathers of high school graduates.
“I think I’ve aged twenty years in the past two days,” the guy said, then managed a weak grin. “Bourbon helps.” He took another swig.
She busied herself slicing fruit for sangria, always a big seller in the warm months. The chore occupied her while keeping her near enough to the man to talk, if he wanted conversation.
Apparently, he did. “So, what was it? The song, I mean.”
“It was ‘Moondance,’ isn’t that what you said?”
“I mean, what was it about the song that turned my life upside down?”
She glanced at him, then focused on the grapes she was cutting in half. “Some people think the jukebox is magic,” she told him.
“Really?”
She shot him another quick look. He appeared curious. Not skeptical, not convulsed in laughter at the sheer absurdity of the idea. Most men tended to react with scorn. Not to make broad generalizations, but men considered themselves too sensible to believe in something as fanciful as magic. Of course, they weren’t too sensible to believe that fast cars were sexy, or war could solve problems, or the fate of the universe hinged on whether the Patriots won another Superbowl.
Whether or not this guy was a Patriots fan, he seemed a bit more open-minded than most men. “When you were over there looking at the jukebox—” she motioned toward the jukebox with a jerk of her chin “—you may have noticed that it doesn’t list any songs next to the buttons.”
“I did notice that, yeah.”
“You can’t pick the songs you want it to play. All you can do is slide in a dime—or a quarter for three songs. The jukebox plays whatever it wants.”
“And sometimes plays the same song twice.”
She nodded. “Every now and then, whatever song it’s playing will have an effect on someone in the tavern. Maybe on two people. They’ll hear the song and it’ll turn their lives upside down.”
“Really?” Again, he sounded more intrigued than dubious. He swiveled on his stool until he could stare at the jukebox, then swiveled back. “It’s beautiful. The colors, especially. Those peacocks.”
Gus was partial to the stained-glass peacocks on the front of the jukebox, too. She decided she liked this guy. “So, when you go back to wherever you came from, you can tell everyone that while you were in Brogan’s Point, you were targeted by the jukebox.”
“How do you know I’m not from here?”
“You said you were in town for your daughter’s graduation.”
“Oh. Right.” He gazed into his glass for a long minute, as if searching for answers in the honey-brown liquid. Gus wondered if she should remind him that there were no answers in booze. She was a bartender; she ought to know. “I’m not drunk,” he added.
“Glad to hear it. If you were, I’d be pouring you a coffee right about now.”
Only one waitress was on this evening, given what a slow night it was. She strolled over to the bar, moving at a more leisurely pace than she would on a busy night, and asked Gus for a mojito and a dirty martini for table ten. Gus nodded and moved away to prepare the drinks.
Once they were on their way to table ten, she returned to the sangria fruit, and the man. He was still inspecting his bourbon, his gaze intense, his frown thoughtful. She resumed slicing grapes, saying nothing. If he had more questions—and from his expression, she suspected he did—he’d ask when he was ready.
“The magic—does it affect people physically or mentally?”
Now that was a question she’d never been asked. “Either, or both. Emotionally. I don’t know—the jukebox has never cast a spell on me.”
“Maybe you’re immune. Too much exposure, and you build a resistance.”
She chuckled, wondering if he’d been affected physically, mentally, or both. “Moondance” was a terrific song, happy yet plaintive, the singer longing for what he already had: a woman, her love, some sex. The lyrics implied that she was as eager for him as he was for her, yet he was asking. Not assuming she was his, but politely, almost bashfully asking if he might have one dance with her.
“I’m no expert,” she said as the guy’s silence stretched on and his frown darkened, “but if you like the woman, and you and she both heard the song, go for it.”
His laugh was humorless. “I don’t like her,” he admitted. “She left me a long time ago, and took our daughter with her. She might as well have stabbed me in the back.”
That didn’t sound too promising. Gus had seen instances where the jukebox brought lovers together. Could it tear lovers apart, too?
“I don’t like her,” he muttered, “but maybe I love her. Shit.” He tossed back what was left of his bourbon, slapped a few bills on the bar, and stalked out of the tavern, leaving Gus to acknowledge that magic wasn’t always benign. Sometimes it could cast a nasty spell.
***
The Ocean Bluff Inn was a great place. Cory was glad he’d booked a room there, glad he could spend a week there. But returning to his room overlooking the ocean that night didn’t make him happy.
The room was too big. The bed was definitely too big. He wanted Talia there with him.
He wasn’t crazy about magic, but he didn’t discount its power, either. He believed there were lots of different kinds of magic. As an artist, he knew that a visual image could reduce a person to hysterical laughter or abject tears. That, to him, was magic: that colors and shapes, organized in one way, could elate the viewer, and those same colors and shapes, organized in a different way, could depress the viewer.
If art could create magic, why couldn’t music create magic, too? Why couldn’t an old rock song work on a man’s psyche the way Viagra worked on his anatomy? When Cory had first seen Talia in the Indian restaurant Sunday evening, he’d felt a combination of admiration, resentment, nostalgia, and relief that he and she had both thrived in the aftermath of their divorce, and that they’d managed to produce one hell of a fantastic daughter. He’d thought Talia looked good, but he hadn’t wanted to bang her.
Then he’d heard “Moondance,” not once but twice. And it made him want to dance with her—a naked, sweaty dance of ecstasy.
Marvelous, he thought as he shoved open the window, letting the ocean breeze into his room. Then he shook his head and snorted. He never used the word marvelous. It seemed kind of pretentious, kind of affected, like that comedian on old “Saturday Night Live” videos who used to tell people they looked �
��mah-ve-lous, dah-ling.”
But the word was in that song. A marvelous night for a moondance. A fantabulous night. What the hell was that word supposed to mean?
He knew what it meant. It meant he wanted Talia, his Tally. The girl with the big brown eyes and the eager smile, the girl who’d thought he was talented even though he could never sign his name to his illegal graffiti, the girl who didn’t think he was weird, even though he wasn’t a macho jock like most of his classmates.
He’d loved her because she was kind. Because she was grounded. Because she had a father and a mother who—he’d thought—cared enough about her to put limits on her, to raise her with values, even if those values placed restrictions on her. He’d grown up with no limits or restrictions. If he’d wanted to sneak out at night and tag a building with a can of spray paint, his mother hadn’t cared. She hadn’t even noticed. After his father had died in a construction accident, the insurance company had given his mother a nice settlement, which had been put in an annuity so she’d have a regular income. And that was it. She didn’t work. She just floated through her little universe, serene and spacy. Cory had raised himself.
He’d been drawn to Talia because she was beautiful, but also because she was stable. He could depend on her in a way he could never depend on his mother.
And then, one day, he couldn’t depend on Talia, either. She’d left him.
The good news, he supposed, was that he’d learned to depend on himself. He’d developed his own stability. He’d worked hard, he’d succeeded professionally, and he’d been the best father he could be from two hundred fifty miles away. He’d done his best, even if it hadn’t been good enough for Talia.
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