She's Up to No Good(96)

Leaning over me, he pushed gently until I was lying on the island, and I ran my fingers through his hair as he kissed my neck, my body on fire at his touch. His thumbs hooked into the waistband of my shorts, and he slid them down over my thighs before discarding them on the floor. His head moved lower, and he looked up at my sharp intake of breath.

Our eyes met, and he shook his head slightly.

“What?”

His lips spread in a slow smile that absolutely melted me. “You’re beautiful,” he said, moving up to kiss me again, slower this time.

Then he stopped abruptly and looked to his right. I turned my head to see Jax’s face and paws at the edge of the island as she stood on her hind legs, her tongue lolling out as she watched us.

“What is wrong with her?” he asked.

I sat up and brushed my lips against his. “Bedroom?”

He nodded and offered me a hand as I jumped down from the island.

I glanced back at him over my shoulder as I walked out of the kitchen. “Please tell me you have condoms.”

“Don’t you mean prophylactics?”

I let out a shriek of laughter as he grabbed me around the waist and planted a kiss on the side of my neck, and whispered that yes, he did.

“Good,” I said as he shut the door, keeping Jax outside, and the two of us fell, still laughing, onto the bed together.





I smiled in the darkness after, pillowed in the crook of Joe’s arm as he drowsily ran his fingers up and down from my belly button to my collarbone. Just that light touch felt like it was setting off a chain reaction to every nerve ending in my body.

I turned to face him, pressing my body against his side, and he looked down at me. “Do I get to hear the bad date story yet?”

I made a face. “Do you want to?”

“Desperately.”

I shook my head. “Okay, so she tells me she’s fixing me up with this guy whose grandma she knows, and I agree to go. And we meet at a restaurant, and he seems normal and all, and we wind up going back to his place to watch a movie.”

“How old were you?”

“Maybe nineteen?”

“So you knew what watch a movie meant?”

“No, I mean, yes—normally. But we were actually just watching the movie. And then I looked down and—” I stopped talking.

“And?”

“It was just . . . out.”

“What was—oh!”

“Yeah. Like this guy hadn’t even kissed me. And it was just out.”

“What did you do?”

“I said I had to go home, and I left! But like . . . What did my grandma tell his grandma about me if he thought that was appropriate on a first date fixup?”

Joe laughed. “I guess the bar was set pretty low for me, then.”

I looked up at him. “It could have been set at the moon. You still would have passed it.”

He held my gaze for a long moment, and I stopped breathing, wondering if I had said too much. Then he rolled on top of me, kissing me slowly, pressing his body deliciously into mine.

“Stay the night?” he whispered. I nodded as he kissed me again.





CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE


July 1955


Hereford, Massachusetts


Evelyn stood dry eyed at the funeral, her hand cool in Fred’s despite the humidity of the summer day. The cemetery was farther inland, and the day was hot, the sun merciless against their black clothes. She hadn’t cried when the police came to the door, first to get information from a panicked Miriam, who was convinced Vivie had run off to New York, and a stoic Joseph, who was a terrible actor. Nor had she when they returned a couple of hours later with the news that left her mother weeping on the floor. She had slipped quietly to the room she shared most recently with her sister and sat on the edge of the bed, willing the tears to bring some sort of release. But they didn’t come.

She and her father had hardly spoken in the two days since. The funeral was arranged quickly, as Jewish custom dictated that the deceased be buried as soon as possible. Fred took the train up that day, the rest of the family arriving with their children, crowding the Main Street house, Bernie’s house in town, and both cottages.

Numbly, she recited the Mourner’s Kaddish from memory, murmuring the Hebrew words along with her family through a mouth that felt like it was full of cotton. The casket was lowered into the ground, and the rabbi handed a small spade to Joseph, who, crying openly, took it and shoveled a small pile of dirt into the grave, the sound making Evelyn wince.

I can’t do it, she thought, taking an involuntary step backward. Fred looked over and wrapped his arm around her. She wanted to shake him off and run away. Her breathing intensified as her mother’s shovelful of dirt made the same muffled thud.

“You don’t have to do it,” Fred whispered. “It’s okay. Not everyone does.”

Evelyn swallowed dryly. “It’s a mitzvah,” she whispered back. “It’s the last thing I can do for her.”

He squeezed her briefly and then released her as she took her turn to scoop a small pile of dirt to cover her sister.

She stood at the edge of the grave holding the spade of soil and looked down at the plain pine box that already had a fine layer of earth scattered over it. Oh Vivie, she thought. I’ll never stop missing you. She let the dirt fall and stepped back quickly, handing the shovel to Margaret, who was bawling. But still Evelyn could not cry.