Dance Away with Me(9)

“I knew you’d come!” She grabbed Tess by the wrist and pulled her into the hallway where long ago students must once have stripped off their coats and doffed their muddy boots. Bianca was barefoot in a gauzy, off-the-shoulder summer dress that caressed her abdomen. “Wait till you see this place.” She tossed Tess’s jacket on one of the old brass coat hooks and directed her into the main living area. “Ian bought it from these friends of mine, Ben and Mark. They’re both decorators, and they did the renovation. They planned to use it as a studio and vacation house, but they got bored after the first year.”

Watery morning sunshine streamed through the big, deep-silled schoolhouse windows. The ceilings were high, maybe eighteen feet, the walls chalk-white beadboard at the bottom with dusty, cornflower-blue paint at the top. White glass schoolhouse globes hung from the ceiling, and the original floors—scars, gouges, and all—had been thickly varnished to a high, dark sheen.

The furnishings in the large, open room were low and comfortable. Couches upholstered in white canvas, a long, industrial-style wooden dining table with metal legs, and a big coffee table in the same style, but with wheels. Under one wall of windows, bookshelves displayed rocks, animal bones, a few twisted tree roots, and a generous collection of hardback books. A schoolhouse globe perched on top of an old upright piano. A Seth Thomas pendulum clock hung near an old potbelly stove, and a bell rope dangled from a rectangular opening in the ceiling.

Bianca pointed to a staircase with open wooden treads and railings made from fat pieces of gray-painted iron pipe. “Ian’s studio is upstairs, but we can’t go in. Not that he seems to be doing anything in there. Totally paralyzed. The master bedroom’s up there, too. There’s a smaller one on this floor. Ben and Mark loved to cook, so the kitchen is great, but neither of us is much of a cook. Are you?”

Tess used to cook but hadn’t for a long time. Roasted pork loin, asparagus, ricotta dumplings with pancetta and crispy sage. . . . That was the last great meal she’d fixed. The dumplings had been perfect, but Trav hadn’t eaten much. “I’m sorry, babe. No appetite. It’s this damned cold. I can’t seem to shake it.”

It hadn’t been a cold. He’d had pneumococcal pneumonia, a disease that should have responded to treatment, but hadn’t. Ten days later, he was dead.

“Are you okay?” Bianca was looking at her with concern.

Tess remembered to smile. “Yes. Fine. I was . . . I like to cook, but I haven’t done much of it lately.”

“And I like to eat. Maybe you can give me some ideas.”

Bianca showed her the galley kitchen: white subway tiles behind the sink; one long schoolhouse window at the narrow end; white beadboard; cupboards painted a lighter shade of the same blue as the rest of the downstairs. An outside door led to the rear of the house. An eggplant sat on the soapstone counter next to a couple of withering tomatoes and half a loaf of French bread.

Bianca perched on the low windowsill, hands resting on her belly, and gleefully listed some of her favorite foods, the restaurants she loved and hated, the missing items from their weekly grocery delivery, and her pregnancy cravings. Her conversation, Tess was discovering, tended to swirl around herself, which suited Tess perfectly.

“Make something!” Bianca demanded, with girlish enthusiasm. “Something healthy and delicious that neither of us has ever eaten. Something to feed my baby.”

Tess had no appetite, but she pulled a bunch of wilting Swiss chard from the refrigerator, a bulb of garlic, and a bottle of balsamic vinegar for an improvised bruschetta.

Bianca exclaimed over everything Tess did, as if she’d never seen an eggplant being diced or a garlic clove peeled. “It’s like watching the supreme earth mother at work.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Look at you. Your hair, your body. Next to you, I’m all pale and feeble.”

“Those pregnancy hormones have done a job on you. You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

Bianca sighed, as if her appearance was a burden to bear. “That’s what everybody says.” She turned away to gaze out the window at the dry, winter grasses in the glade that stretched beyond the schoolhouse. “I want this baby so bad. Something of my very own.”

Tess swept the eggplant peelings into the trash. “Your husband might have a few thoughts about that.”

Bianca went on as if she hadn’t heard. “I lost my parents when I was six. My grandmother raised me.”

Tess had lost her own mother almost ten years ago. Her father had deserted them when she was five, and she had only a few memories of him.

“For a long time, I didn’t care about having kids,” Bianca said. “But then I kind of got obsessed with getting pregnant.”

Tess wondered how her husband had felt about that. For all of Bianca’s chatter, she hadn’t said much about her marriage.

Delicious smells began to fill the kitchen as Tess sautéed the garlic and chopped Swiss chard in olive oil, throwing in some butter to cut down on the vegetable’s bitterness. She toasted the French bread and diced the aging tomatoes, along with some finely chopped olives. After mixing it all together, she adjusted the seasonings, splashed on a little more olive oil, and spooned it on top of the toasted bread. With the finished pieces set on a pair of ironstone plates, she and Bianca settled at the long dining table.