Send Down the Rain(56)
“You ’bout done?”
“Done with what?”
“Thinking.”
“Well . . . I don’t know.”
She leaned into me and kissed me, pressing her face against mine. While the other kisses had been kind and gentle, this was more of a pass a passionate teenager might make. When she sat up and peeled away from me, I actually uttered the word, “Wow.”
She sat up, perplexed. Staring from my lips to me. “This whole exchange is better when two people do it. It’s called ‘kissing.’ It’s when your lips speak what your heart feels. Or have you forgotten how?”
I laughed. “I might have. It’s been a long time.”
She kissed me again. When she’d finished smothering me, which I didn’t mind at all, she wiped her smeared lipstick off with a finger, smiling. “Well, that’s a start.”
She sat back in her seat and threw her feet up on the dash. “You’re going to give me a complex if you don’t make a pass at me soon.” She pushed her hair back. “I mean, we’re not that old. First it was the pajamas, and you did nothing. Now I’m practically throwing myself at you, and . . .” She undid her top button. “I’m still a kid at heart.”
I put my arm around her. “What you’re getting, or not getting, from me has nothing to do with you.”
“Why then?” She half smiled. “If you tell me you’re married, I am going to shoot you in the face.”
I laughed. “I’m not married. I promise.”
“Good, ’cause I’d hate to have to turn your head into a canoe.” We laughed. She leaned against me. “That’s the first time I’ve been able to laugh about that whole thing. Ten years wasted from my life, and here I am laughing about it.”
“That’s good.”
“But that still doesn’t answer my question.”
“I thought we were finished talking about that.”
“Nope. And you haven’t said, or more importantly done, anything that makes me think we’re any closer to you wrapping your arms around me and making out with me.”
“Are you this forward with all your car dates?”
“Just you.”
I tried to explain. “There’s a thing that happens when you watch guys . . . get gone. And as their numbers add up, and the months pass and their faces flash with some regularity before you . . . you begin to feel guilty for . . . feeling. For desire. For hope. For laughter. For kissing a beautiful girl. Like somehow, to have any emotion that is good, or to be with anyone else, is like spitting on their memory. I know that sounds crazy, but the moment I start to let myself feel anything good, their faces pop up in my mind. And . . . any good emotion feels like a betrayal.”
“A betrayal of who?”
“The guys who never had the chance.” I rubbed my hands together. “Letting myself experience or desire pleasure is like a shot through the heart of their memory.”
To her credit, Allie didn’t listen and then try to fix me. She just listened. After a minute she slid her hand inside my shirt, placing her palm flat against my heart. “You need to know something.” Her hand felt warm across my chest. “I’ve been holding my love a long time. Twice disastrously married doesn’t change that. I’ve never given my heart to anyone the way I once gave it to you. Right now, it’s full. I don’t know that I can hold it in much longer.” She spoke softly. “I don’t want to make light of anything you just said, but if those red-blooded guys that you hold in your heart were here in this seat with us, I think they’d tell you it was okay. They’d cheer you on. They’d be fist-pumping and knuckle-bumping and whatever it is guys do.”
I wrapped my arm tight around her. Smiling. “They’d be saying a lot more than that.”
She smiled. “Then you should listen to them.”
33
The soft opening arrived. As did crowds of hungry people. We opened for lunch and had anticipated being open for dinner, but by three p.m. we’d sold out of everything but water. Two of the first customers were my cigar-smoking, Harley-driving local who’d never met a stranger and the building inspector. I sat them each in a booth overlooking the ocean and bought their lunch. For dessert my Harley friend ordered a plate of hush puppies and polished them off with a cigar on the porch.
The second day, Allie doubled her food order and we sold out by three thirty. This continued throughout the week, and by Friday night there was a two-and-a-half-hour wait at the door. She looked at me from the hostess stand, shaking her head. “Where did all these people come from?”
We survived the weekend. Allie had decided that we’d close Mondays to give the staff a break and allow the cleaning team time to scour the restaurant.
Monday afternoon found all of us relaxing. The family was playing on the beach while Allie and I sat on the porch. She was counting the receipts from the week, and I was rubbing her feet. I said, “Are you cooking the books, or balancing them?”
She shook her head. “No need to cook them. If my math is correct, we netted seventeen thousand dollars. That means I can start paying you back.”
As the sun was just dropping over the edge of the Gulf, giving way to my favorite time of day, a courier drove up the drive with a package addressed to Allie. She signed for it and then sat on the porch overlooking the dunes and ocean. Her mind was spinning with a dozen things, not least of all the foot massage, so she totally ignored the sender and simply tore open the package.