Everything You Want Me to Be(88)

Inside the barn I lit the lantern I’d left in the corner and checked the time.

10:17. Still early. Peter could be just locking up the school now.

I didn’t mind waiting: it gave me the chance to rehearse what I was going to say. I wasn’t playing a part anymore—I was all done with that—but it didn’t hurt to be prepared, to know that the words coming out of my mouth were exactly the ones I wanted to say. The last time I’d tried being open and honest with Peter, everything had come out wrong and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Not when this was our last chance.

After I finished rehearsing, I started dancing around the floor, partly to stay warm, because I hadn’t brought a sweater to put on over my sundress, and partly because Tommy had put that prom idea in my head. What would it be like to go to a formal dance—not the Pine Valley High School prom in the gymnasium—but a real one in a ballroom, with a beautiful dress to wear, escorted by a man in a tuxedo? I started waltzing, holding my arms out around an invisible partner, one-two-three, one-two-three, just like Dad taught me in the living room after we saw The Nutcracker when I was ten years old.

I got so caught up in the thought, watching my shadow twirl and shift along the walls, that I almost screamed when I turned toward the broken window and saw the outline of a person.

My heart raced and I dropped my arms, tripping over a loose floorboard. After a pause, the figure drew forward, and I saw it was Peter. He stared at me with the strangest expression. I would have thought he’d laugh to see me acting so silly and young, but his face was transfixed. He walked out of sight and came around to the door, stepping just inside. Our eyes locked and held.

I didn’t say anything, didn’t want to break the spell. I walked over to him and reached out, drawing one of his hands to my waist and lifting the other in the air beside us. I circled my free hand over his shoulder, leaving a proper distance of space between our bodies. We almost matched up, practically eye to eye. I could see his objection coming, could feel the magic leaving him, so I pulled him gently toward me, starting the steps. One-two-three. One-two-three. And, like a miracle, he began waltzing.

Our pace was slower than mine had been. He moved me deliberately around the room, skirting the edge of the lake, never looking away from me. Neither of us smiled. I could feel my blood pumping warmer and faster, creating that reaction in the pit of my stomach that always happened whenever Peter touched me. I could tell he felt it, too.

After circling the dry half of the barn for what felt like an eternity, we moved to the middle and broke out of the waltz. Peter let go of my waist and spun me, slowly, one, two, three times from the length of his arm and stepped back, until only his fingertips brushed the edges of mine and then were gone. He let his arm fall to his side and we stood apart, breathing heavily.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“You’re dancing with me.” I tried to keep it simple, even though Peter never let anything be simple. He sighed and I knew complications were coming; they were climbing up his throat right now. I stepped forward and held my hand up. “Just wait. Wait.” I took a deep breath, remembering what I wanted to say.

“You’re going to be a shitty father.”

Peter opened his mouth. Closed it. Then said, “Thanks.”

“I’ve thought this all through. I know you, Peter. I know you think you have to do what’s right for the baby and stay with Mary, but she’s never going to leave Pine Valley. So you’re either going to be trapped here forever, hating every minute of it, or you’re going to eventually get divorced anyway and drag the kid through some awful custody battle, making him believe it’s his fault Mommy and Daddy hate each other, and leave him—or her—psychologically scarred for life.

“Then what? You’ll move back to Minneapolis to try to start over, alone, never seeing your kid anyway because you’re too far away for the every-other-weekend deal that most dads get. And by then I’ll be in my twenties or thirties, probably married to some Wall Street guy that I only liked in the first place because he kind of looked like you, hating him because he doesn’t understand me at all, and having his children, which I’m pretty sure I don’t want.”

Peter was trying not to smile. “What’s his name?”

“Barry.” I shook my head like I’d said it a million times, and it was stuck to me like chewing gum on my shoe. “His name is Barry. Can you believe it?”

“Yes, I can. Don’t forget that Barry has a good job. You probably have a time share in the Hamptons. Barry can give you the kind of life that you deserve.”

“Barry is an asshole.”

Peter burst out laughing and I plowed ahead, acting like the put-out wife.

“He never helps with the kids and stays out at happy hours with his friends all the time. When do you think was the last time he even took me to see a play, much less let me audition for one?”

Peter’s laugh trailed off and he shook his head at me, smiling. “God, I don’t think there’s a Barry in the world who can stop you.”

I walked over to my purse and pulled out a small, black-handled locker key, then came back and put it in his hand.

“Here’s your money. Kind of.”

As he stared at it, his forehead crinkled up the way I loved. “What’s this?”