Right Place, Wrong Time

by Judith Arnold

  Not down the hallway. Not hovering outside beneath the front door’s awning with the smokers who’d had to leave the building to light up.

  Where the hell was she? Why had she pulled this stunt?

  Swallowing his humiliation, he approached the night clerk behind the polished mahogany check-in desk. “Have you seen a tall woman in a dark blue evening dress, with black hair and—”

  “Silvery shoes?” the clerk asked. “I couldn’t help noticing them—they were so weird. She went outside a while ago.”

  “Outside?” He started toward the front door again.

  “No—the other door,” said the clerk, gesturing toward a glass door on the opposite side of the lobby. “To the pool patio. The pool is closed, but the patio’s still open.”

  “Thanks.” Ethan sprinted across the lobby to the glass door and shoved it open.

  He spotted Gina perched on a carved marble bench, hugging her arms around herself in the chilly November night and staring at the large rectangular black tarp that covered the pool. She was all alone on the patio, a solitary figure surrounded by wrought-iron tables and chairs and folded sun umbrellas, a few leafless trees, dead patches of grass and a tall white security fence. He was overcome with a rush of relief—followed by a fresh surge of anger.

  “Gina. What are you doing out here?”

  She turned to him. Her smile was the saddest thing he’d ever seen. “I was just…cooling off,” she said.

  “Cooling off? It’s freezing!” Even in his jacket he felt the air’s chilly nip.

  Her smile grew, if anything, more enigmatic. “Ethan…” As he approached, she sighed and turned back to the pool. “I just needed to clear my head a little.”

  “Why? Did you have too much champagne?”

  Her smile vanished, and she shot him a fierce look. “No, I did not have too much champagne,” she retorted, sounding grossly insulted.

  He wasn’t sure what she’d do if he sat beside her. He didn’t really want to; the marble bench would be icy and uncomfortably hard. More important, he just wanted to go home, and settling himself in for a heart-to-heart with Gina by an abandoned hotel pool wasn’t the most efficient way to accomplish that goal. If they had to have a heart-to-heart, they could do it just as easily in the comfort of his den—if he could keep himself from staring at the carpet and remembering what they’d done the last time they’d been in the den.

  God, he hated heart-to-hearts with women. They made him as uncomfortable as the word relationship. He was crazy about Gina; they had something amazing going, something spectacular—but he didn’t want to talk about it. And he had the feeling that if he sat on that bench next to her, talking about it was what they’d wind up doing.

  Unsure what to say, he let his gaze drift to her shoes. The night clerk was right; they were weird. Funny. Striking. Like Gina herself.

  “I don’t belong here,” she said abruptly.

  He took a deep breath and weighed his response. “Neither of us belongs here,” he finally said. “The pool is closed and the party’s over. Let’s go.”

  “No, I meant—” She pursed her lips, then sighed again and rose from the bench. “All right. Let’s go.”

  She’d meant something else, obviously. But he wasn’t going to ask her to clarify herself out here, in the cold. In the warmth of his car, he could demand an explanation.

  She stood patiently in the lobby while he finalized some paperwork with the hotel’s banquet manager, and then they headed out the front door to the parking lot. He helped her into his car, took the wheel, blasted the heat and steered away from the hotel, all the while waiting for her to explain her cryptic comment. But she said nothing, just tapped her fingertips together in her lap and let her head loll back against the headrest.

  The silence ate at him. “Did something happen to you?” he finally asked. “At the dinner—did someone say something to you?”

  “Lots of people said lots of things,” she answered vaguely.

  “Don’t play games, Gina. Something’s bugging you, and I can’t do a damn thing about it if you don’t tell me what it is.”

  “You can’t do a damn thing about it anyway,” she said, straightening up. At a red light, he allowed himself a glimpse of her. Her mouth was set, her eyes luminous in the car’s shadows. “I didn’t belong at that party tonight, Ethan.”

  He sat up straighter, too, concern running the length of his spine like a buzz of electricity. This wasn’t a minor snit. Gina had a real grievance. Whether or not it was justified, he had to take it seriously.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  “It was obvious. I was like an exchange student there. Everyone was talking a different language. Except that professor from Yale—Madelyn? She understood about buying clothes on sale. But then I asked her about her research, and I had no idea what she was talking about. I had no idea what most of those people were talking about. They might as well been speaking Greek.”

  “You’re not in Greece, Gina. You’re in Connecticut. It’s not a foreign country.”

  “It is to me.”

  “Come on! It’s not even another part of America. Connecticut and New York are contiguous.”

  “Contiguous?” She snorted a laugh. “Contiguous! Now, there’s a great word.”

  Oh, boy. This was worse than discussing their relationship—although Ethan had a creeping suspicion that that was exactly what they were doing. “Okay,” he said in the calmest voice he could muster. “What’s wrong with contiguous?”

  “Normal people don’t use the word contiguous. At least, not normal people where I come from.”

  “And that would be where? New York City? I bet there are people even in the Bronx who use the word contiguous.”

  “Then you should have brought those people to your fancy party, instead.” She let out a long breath. When she spoke again, her tone held no sarcasm, no derision. She sounded wistful, as sad as her smile by the pool had been. “Ethan, I didn’t belong at that party tonight. I went, and I tried my best. But I fit in about as well as a whoopee cushion at the ballet. They hated my shoes.”

  “Nobody hated your shoes,” he assured her. The clerk had called them weird, but that wasn’t the same as hating them.

  “They did. They were polite, but they made sure I understood that my shoes weren’t appropriate. My shoes were the most me thing at that party, and they didn’t fit in. And neither did I.”

  “Gina—”

  “I saw you there with your friends, Ethan. Your associates, your colleagues…I saw you with Kim. She belonged there. I didn’t.”

  Damn. Was that what this was about? Jealousy over Kim? “There’s nothing between me and Kim. I told you—”

  “And I believe you. Of course I do. What I’m saying…” She paused, clearly struggling with her thoughts. “All I’m saying is, you belonged there. A woman like Kim belonged there. I saw the two of you together and thought, What is he doing with me? I don’t belong in this world.”

  “I wanted you in that world,” he argued. “I wanted you with me. I wouldn’t have asked you to be there with me if I hadn’t wanted you.”

  “I know that, Ethan. Just like I want you with me when I go club hopping downtown. How do you feel when we do that? Do you feel like you belong?”

  God, no. But he couldn’t admit as much. If he did, Gina would use his admission as proof that he was an exchange student in her world, or her friends hated his loafers, or some such thing.

  “I mean, it’s so sweet of you, going to parties with me and trying so hard to make small talk with people you have nothing in common with. I can imagine how hard it must be for you. I love it that you do that for me. But it’s hard. You know I’m right about that.”

  “Gina—”

  “I’m being honest here. And the honest truth is, you don’t feel any more comfortable with me in my world than I do with you in your world.”

  All right. The honest truth: he didn’t feel comfortable in her world. B
ut he could tolerate a few hours of small talk with punks with pierced noses and green hair if it meant spending the rest of the night in Gina’s bed. Given how spectacular life in her bed could be, he was willing to tolerate a hell of a lot to get there.

  The honesty she was demanding of him forced him to follow that thought to its end. If he was tolerating the head-banging music, the cheap beer and the vapid conversations about which neighborhood sushi bar had the best aki-aki and which cover girl was overdoing it with Ecstasy, just so he could have sex with Gina, what did that say about him? Other than the fact that he really, really enjoyed sex with Gina.

  She was talking about life beyond her bed and his, life beyond the magical sphere they entered when it was just the two of them. Even this awkward, painful conversation in his car, late at night, was part of the magic. He’d never before been involved with a woman who compelled such honesty from him, who wanted it. Kim would have happily married him without ever knowing how he felt about most things—let alone such personal issues as how comfortable he felt in societies that weren’t like his own. Kim would never have pressed him to consider such questions. She hadn’t cared.

  Gina did. And she was right. When they were alone, they were great. But when they ventured out into each other’s worlds, they needed a passport and a Berlitz book.

  “Your friend Carole and my friend Paul get along okay,” he pointed out.

  “Carole is a doctor. Paul is a businessman. And they both work so hard neither has the time nor energy to go to the other’s parties, anyway.”

  “That’s true.” He turned onto his street and slowed as he neared his driveway. “Maybe they should schedule a week together in Palm Point so they can get to know each other.”

  “Or two weeks,” Gina said. “His and hers. Of course, if they spend that time together, they might find out they don’t like each other. It’s been known to happen.”

  It had happened with him and Kim, he acknowledged silently. But he hadn’t minded losing Kim. Gina…God, he didn’t want to lose her.

  He yanked the parking brake and turned off the engine. “Let’s not talk about this anymore tonight,” he said, holding out the promise that they could resume the discussion tomorrow if she insisted. They could compare their worlds and bare their souls and figure out a way to build a bridge between downtown funk and suburban posh, something more substantial than the sand bridges Alicia had created on the beach outside their time-share condo. Right now it was late and they were both tired, and a guy could handle only so much honesty when all he wanted was to take his woman in his arms and make love to her, and then drift off to sleep with her body warm and soft next to his.

  Within minutes they were in his bedroom, naked, and she was as warm and soft as he could have dreamed. But when he kissed her he tasted tears on her cheeks, and he understood that even in bed, a person couldn’t hide from the truth.

  “YOU BROKE UP with him?” Ramona shrieked into Gina’s ear. “What are you—crazy?”

  Gina was sitting across from Carole at a tiny table in a tapas bar, and she should have turned off her cell phone once the waiter had brought their wine and tapas. But she hadn’t, and when it had beeped, Carole had conveniently announced that she had to go to the bathroom, so Gina had taken the call. Now she was stuck listening to her sister scream at her.

  “I get home, there’s this message on my machine saying, ‘This weekend didn’t work out, so I guess I won’t be seeing Ethan anymore,’” Ramona wailed. “How could the weekend not work out? You had the perfect dress!”

  “The dress was perfect for the weekend,” Gina explained, sending an apologetic look to Carole as she returned from the ladies’ room. “It just wasn’t perfect for me.”

  “You promised Ali she could see this guy. She’s half in love with him herself. And now you’ve gone and broken up with him? How is she going to see him?”

  “Look, Mo, I can’t talk right now, okay? Carole is eating all the tapas and I’m not getting any.” Hearing her words, Carole snagged a salty sliver of fried anchovy from the platter between them.

  “You looked gorgeous in that dress,” Ramona insisted. “I can’t believe he’d let you walk out on him. What happened? Did that bastard break your heart?”

  “We’ll talk about it later, okay? I’ve got to go.” She hit the disconnect button before Ramona could say anything more.

  Carole nudged the platter closer to Gina. She picked up a piece of smoked chorizo and listlessly bit into it. She honestly didn’t care if Carole ate all the tapas. Ever since she’d left Ethan’s house that overcast Sunday morning, she hadn’t really cared about much.

  “So you broke up with him, huh?” Carole said.

  “Not really,” Gina said, then sighed. “Yeah.” She took a sip of her Rioja to still the quaver in her voice. “It just wasn’t going to work, Carole. That’s the bottom line.”

  “It worked for a few months.”

  “Not even. Mid-September to early November. That’s less than two months.”

  Carole pulled a face. “It started working while you and he were in my St. Thomas condo. So don’t give me that.” She took another anchovy, which was just as well since Gina wasn’t crazy about the anchovies. They were too salty. Then again, all tapas were salty—the bars that served them went heavy on the salt in order to make customers thirsty. Then the customers would buy more drinks. Gina and Carole were on their first glasses of wine, but it might take a few rounds to get Gina through the story of her breakup with Ethan.

  “I was like a fish out of water in Connecticut,” she said. “When we were in St. Thomas, we did a lot of snorkeling. Have you ever gone snorkeling down there?”

  Carole swallowed and nodded. “Sure. The snorkeling is wonderful.”

  “You know how, when you snorkel, the fish just sort of accept you? You know you don’t belong there, and the fish know it, but everyone pretends it’s okay that you’re there among them.”

  Carole nodded again.

  “When I went to that party with Ethan,” Gina explained, “it was like snorkeling. The fish would pump their little mouths at me and then swim away. I was trying to be part of their world, but I knew I wasn’t. They pretended it was okay that I was there, but I wasn’t one of them.”

  “Do you have to be?” Carole asked sympathetically.

  “No, except that Ethan is one of them.” She sipped a little more wine. “When we talked on Sunday, he said I only felt weird at the party because I’d drunk too much champagne. I mean, puh-leez.”

  “Do you think he was trying to make light of your discomfort?”

  One reason Gina loved Carole was that she approached every conversation like the doctor she was. She dissected each idea and then diagnosed it. “Exactly,” Gina agreed. “He didn’t want to believe I really felt out of place. But the thing is, his old girlfriend was at the dinner.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, really, I was fine with that.” Gina held her hands up, as if to prove she had nothing to hide. “Kim and I got along okay in St. Thomas. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her. Ethan seems to think she wasn’t the woman for him, and he might be right about that. But I saw her at the dinner—I saw her with him—and I realized she belonged there as much as he did. They were like two beautiful, graceful fish, and I was the big, clumsy human being.”

  “You are not clumsy.”

  “You know what I’m saying.” Gina picked up another slice of chorizo and forced herself to nibble at it. She considered mentioning what had happened with her shoes, but decided not to go into it. Carole would dissect that, too. She’d want to know why Gina had worn inappropriate shoes, whether she’d done so deliberately, to test Ethan’s social circle. And maybe Gina had. Maybe, despite her perfect dress, she’d wanted to make sure everyone knew who she truly was. Those shoes were who she was.

  She didn’t need Carole to analyze that.

  “So,” she said, lifting her glass and then putting it back down so she wouldn’t empty it
too quickly, “I asked him how he felt at my parties. He started out all righteous, insisting he thought my parties were great, he thought visiting Lower Manhattan was a big adventure, he thought loud music and microbrewery beer were just swell and it was such a kick talking to people with spiky hair and visible nipples about whether graffiti is the people’s art.”

  “You didn’t believe him,” Carole guessed.

  “He didn’t believe himself,” Gina said. “I pressed him, and he finally admitted that he’d rather listen to a classical music trio—that’s what they had at the benefit dinner—than Jimmy Eats World. And he’d rather talk about the peregrine falcon population than whether squatters ought to be evicted when they’ve made improvements to the properties they’ve been squatting on.”

  “Peregrine falcons are important,” Carole pointed out.

  “So are squatters.” Gina sighed. She didn’t want to argue with Carole. “There we were in his big, bright, eat-in kitchen, drinking coffee, and I looked across at him and thought, I love this man. I love him.”

  “And you broke up with him?”

  Gina nodded again. “How can I drag him to my downtown parties? He doesn’t like them. He’s only going to them for me. He’s as much a fish out of water in Manhattan as I am in Connecticut. And if I love him, how can I keep him out of his water? He doesn’t belong here. He isn’t comfortable here. He comes to the city for my sake, but it doesn’t make him happy.”

  “He said all this? Or are you projecting?”

  “No, he said it. I mean, he didn’t say he wasn’t happy. But he did say he came to the city only because it made me happy, and he hung out with my friends because he thought I wanted him to. He didn’t have to say more than that.” She finally swallowed the last tidbit of chorizo, then washed it down with another sip of red wine. “If I didn’t love him, I wouldn’t care about his happiness, you know? I’d drag him to parties and not care if he felt comfortable. But I do love him, and I can’t stand the idea that he’s forcing himself to do this stuff for me.”

  “But if he’s willing to do it—”

  “What’s the point? He’s not going to be happy. I want him happy.”