Trespassing(77)

“Marriage? Over. Fatherhood? Over. Life as I knew it?”

“Over,” I say with him.

He meets my glance. “Fuck it. Life deals you shitty cards sometimes. What are you gonna do? Fold? Naw, you gotta play, right? No matter what.”

“Absolutely.” I think of my mother, folding with a handful of pills. Checking out. But she didn’t stop there. After I found her in time and they pumped the poison out of her stomach, she only slashed back harder the next time—at her jugular.

She left me to scrape myself up off the floor. I’d played. I’m playing now, too. I reach for the pitcher of mojito and the spare glass the waiter brought with it. I top off mine and fill the second. The red lights from the stage reflect off the glasses and the liquid in them, like stained glass windows. “To being dealt better hands.” I raise my glass.

He raises his. “To lessons learned with the cards we hold.”

“To hard lessons learned.”

We clink.

We drink.

Claudette was right. This behavior—the cheating, the lying—is inexcusable. And if I’d learned of it before Micah flew his proverbial plane into the great beyond, I wouldn’t have been half as forgiving as Claudette was of Brad after Misty Morningside.

Who am I kidding? I love him. I couldn’t have left him. Despite the evidence of his betrayal, despite the fact that he’s gone now, I love him still.

I hear the memory of Micah’s whisper in my ear: I love you, too, Nicki-girl.

I feel the beat of his cha-cha in time with the music from the stage: rock, step, cha . . . cha . . . cha. The cha-chas never at the right tempo but rather at one beat per cha. Wrong. So wrong. But so Micah.

“Dance?”

“What?”

Christian is on his feet, palm up in invitation. “You’re practically dancing in your chair already.”

Am I? “Mojito effect.”

“It’s good. I like it.” He juts his chin toward the dance floor. “Put it to good use.”

“I couldn’t possibly—”

“You’re already doing it! That is, if you want to call whatever it is you’re doing dancing.”

“I’ll have you know, I can hold my own out there.”

“Looks like you want to prove it.”

“You’re on.” I take another long, cold sip of mojito. And then I take my neighbor’s hand.

I hold my frame, follow his lead.

And soon we’re spinning and cha-chaing through the crowd on the dance floor.

It’s effortless. Fun.

And he’s a good dancer.

This is what it was supposed to be like, taking classes with Micah. But he never caught on.

Rock, step, cha-cha-cha.

Rock, turn, cha-cha-cha.

Chris smells of pale ale and some cologne that carries a hint of evergreen. His strong arms guide me around the dance floor, and for the first time since Micah left to give some mysterious executive from a fictitious company a ride to New York, I feel as if someone might catch me if I fall.

Images flash in my mind: Christian’s feeding Papa Hemingway, his bringing Elizabella a frozen treat at Fogarty’s, his mashing squash for Thanksgiving dinner, his lugging over a ladder at a moment’s notice.

He turns me into the cuddle step. Rock, step, cha-cha out of the cuddle.

Memories of day-to-day life with Micah interject: his scooping ice cream, his rubbing my pregnant belly, his piercing into my body on that last night . . .

And suddenly, everything is hazy and sweaty.

The music throbs in my veins.

Rock, step, cha-cha-cha.

And I’m feeling it again, as if it’s actually happening. Sex with Micah. Deep, passionate, as if he were making love as much with his mind as with his body.

I allow my eyes to close, to sink into the feeling. To picture him as I want to remember him forever: between my thighs, connected to me on a thousand levels.

A shiver runs up my spine.

I lean into him, finesse a kiss onto his lips, which part slightly.

His tongue brushes mine.

Frogman.

I gasp.

I imagine Micah on the edge of the dance floor, watching it all. Shame cloaks me in red—heat in my cheeks, heat on my neck, heat in my pants.

But I’m still kissing him.

Christian.

Not Micah.

My neighbor backs off before I do, a stunned, maybe stupefied look on his face, as if he’s not sure that what just happened really happened.

Did it?

The fingers on his left hand are still linked with those on my right, but slowly we part as he heads off the dance floor.

At the last second before he drops my hand, he curls his fingers around mine, and he gives my hand a tug: a subtle invitation to follow him.





Chapter 42

Christian veers toward the table—our conch fritters are there waiting for us—but I keep walking past, toward the staircase that will take me out of the Rum Barrel and out of this awkward situation.

I duck into the ladies’ room. One step past the door, as I’m staring at my reflection in the midst of carefree vacationers and happy-go-lucky visitors, Christian is right there, holding the door open for a pair of women who are exiting and on their way back out to the party.

The hidden boundary between men and women obviously doesn’t deter him, even in a place with a skirted stick figure on the door.