A Lady Under Siege(87)

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What? I’m happy, I’m happy for them. If they get together, great. I’m not as invested in them as you. You get to see them every night, but to me they’re second hand. They’re friends of friends.”

“You’re more than a friend to Thomas—he knows you better than I do.” Her face suddenly broke into a wide grin. “He did say to say thank you for the performance yesterday. He found it—how’d he put it?—I think he called it passionate and edifying.”

“Glad to hear we’re giving him an erotic education,” Derek smiled. “I think it’s time for another lesson.”

“Now? Not now.”

“Where’s Betsy?”

“She’s just down the street. She took her unicycle to the skateboard park, it’s made her a bit of a star there. The boys line up to try it out.”

“Then it’ll have to be a quickie.”

“A super-duper quickie. Even then I don’t think so.”

“When did she go?”

“Ten minutes ago. I told her to be back in an hour.”

“Fifty minutes—that’s not a quickie, that’s a slowie. A slowie with one ear cocked for the key in the door.” He took her hand, and she felt herself carried to him by some force like a river’s current. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, and felt her stretch pliantly against him. She planted kisses on his chest above the V of his collar, rubbing her nose at the base of his neck. “You smell good,” she murmured. He sat back on the couch and she lowered herself onto his lap, straddling him. She stared deeply into his eyes.

“So we have time?” he said.

“No. We’re keeping our clothes on.”

“That’s okay. A lot can be accomplished with clothes on.” He undid the top two buttons of her blouse.

“That’s far enough.”

“Perfect for a peek. I love the view.”

She put a finger under his chin and lifted his gaze from her breasts to her face. She looked deeply, searchingly into his eyes.

“Are you seeing him?”

“Uh huh. Him and you. Kiss me.” Murmuring happily, he leaned forward and ran his tongue down to the little hollow at the base of her neck, and undid a third button on her blouse.

A child’s voice called out, “What are you doing?”

Betsy stood in the hallway watching them, still wearing her bicycle helmet and a cyclist’s day-glow safety vest. One of her knees was skinned and bloody. Meghan, mortified, jumped from Derek’s lap, fumbling with her buttons.

“We’re just wrestling a bit. Playing around,” Derek said.

“I’m not stupid!” Betsy cried. She turned away and charged blindly down the hall to the front door. Meghan hurried after her, calling out for her to come back. She saw her race out the door and down the steps where her unicycle lay bent and broken on its side, saw her run across the sidewalk, darting between two parked cars into the street. “Betsy!” Meghan screamed. What happened next she saw in slow motion, with her heart in her throat—Betsy running blindly into traffic, a white minivan whose driver stared too distractedly at his phone, a screech of brakes like the sound of murder. Meghan thought she would die, until suddenly she saw Betsy, unhurt, still running, down the sidewalk on the far side of the street, to the corner, then out of sight.

She flew down the steps and chased after her, the soles of her bare feet slapping against the unforgiving pavement. Suddenly Derek was at her shoulder, then past her, crossing the street first, and then waiting for her to catch up at the corner. Betsy had disappeared. They hurried to the next intersection. “You go that way, I’ll go this,” he told her.

She set off alone, muttering to herself that she should never have been so careless, that she would never again let love or lust turn her into such a sloppy fool, that she was first and foremost a mother, and a mother needs to keep it together, always and forever. All the while her eyes scanned for Betsy, but there was no sign of her. Suddenly she stopped, realizing that she was moving in the opposite direction from the skateboard park, which rested on the edge of a larger park with playgrounds and playing fields that was by far the most likely place for Betsy to run to, the only sliver of green neutrality in this whole monstrous urban world of parked cars and private property. She turned and headed back that way, the way Derek had gone.

THE PARK WAS NEARLY deserted. Derek found Betsy sitting on the black strap of a playground swing, swaying limply, indifferently, one foot dangling down to scrape a toe at the sand. She glanced up and saw him coming, then kept her head lowered as he sat in the next swing.