What's Mine and Yours(93)

He swept his hand toward the endless water, the pale pink sky.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, and the plainness of his declaration, the truth of it, was so great that Noelle didn’t know how to answer except to say, “Yes, it is.”



They were onshore and giddy, shaking their hands and feet to shuck off the water, the sand caked to their legs, when Noelle heard a chirp from her phone. She was shivering in her underwear as she clicked through her messages and saw one from Diane pronouncing she had better call her back right away. She thought first of her mother, then of her father, all the things that might have gone wrong.

Diane picked up quickly, and Noelle couldn’t help herself. “Well, what is it?” she sputtered.

“I finally did it,” Diane said. “I asked Alma to marry me.”

Noelle felt relief, then the rush of excitement. “This is so wonderful. I’m happy for you.”

“You better think about getting a car. I’m going to be needing lots of help from my maid of honor.”

“What do you think Margarita will say?”

“Relax, I’m having two.”

“Well played, sister.”

“Look, I’ve got to go. The dog is chewing up some wires.”

“I love you.”

“Me too.”

The sisters said their good-byes and hung up. It had gone unnoticed how plainly she had told her sister how she felt, how easily her sister had reciprocated. Noelle resolved that was how it should be. Love was regular; love was everyday.

“Should I take you home?” Bailey asked. He was dressed, watching her from the bench.

“My sister is getting married.”

His face turned solemn. “Not Margarita, right?”

They laughed, and Noelle led the way back through the brush.



The farmhouse was at the end of a long, dusty driveway, a quarter of a mile long. They passed the pond with ducks, the tree swing that the owners’ children must have used when they were young, and the shed where the mean old basset hounds that wandered the farm liked to lurk. They sprang out as soon as they heard Bailey’s car rumbling by. Noelle lowered the window and shooed them away. They were slow moving and fat but still ferocious.

Her apartment was just two rooms. The kitchen and living room were one, already furnished with a wooden table, old plaid armchairs, a corduroy couch. In the bedroom, she kept a mattress on a box spring with no frame. There were taxidermy mallards, an egret hanging from the ceiling, a deer and his antlers poised over the doorway.

“The old farmer’s a hunter,” Noelle explained, pulling down towels from a closet. She handed one to Bailey and started making tea. He had a long drive back, nearly two hours, but neither of them mentioned that. She didn’t have much in her refrigerator by way of dinner, so she smeared toast with butter and honey, set out a little pitcher of milk. He joined her at the table under the low glow of the overhead lamp. She used her phone to play a bolero on the speakers. It was all she listened to these days, although she couldn’t say why. Maybe it was being divorced, wanting clichés about love lost. Maybe it was about wanting more Spanish as she prepared to adopt a baby. Or maybe the music brought romance into her life, without any of its accoutrements: a husband, a shared bank account, the problems of pleasing a man.

Bailey slurped at his tea. “How do you like the single life? It’s lonely but easier, right?”

“At least now I know what to expect,” Noelle said. “When you’re married, you think you’re going to spend your life with someone, but it isn’t true. You can only ever spend your life with you.”

“I think back to being married, and I don’t know how Clem and I spent all that time. Probably making dinner, arguing about pointless things.” He spooned more honey onto his toast. “My life is so wide open now.”

Noelle was noncommittal. “I’m adopting a baby, so I’m going to be plumb out of time soon. But I don’t mind. I’ve had my fair share of it.”

“A baby? All by yourself?”

“Sure. You know something about that, don’t you?”

“My mother is a queen. I couldn’t have asked for a better one.”

“I’ve always envied you. I’ve always wanted Ruth to think of me like a daughter.”

“Well, she does, doesn’t she?”

“I suppose.”

“I can’t say I ever thought of you as a sister though. Not even when you were living with us. If I had, it would make things too awkward now.” Bailey leaned across the table. “You know, between me and Margarita.”

“Come on,” she said, and took him by the hand.



They undressed each other efficiently, their bodies still clammy and cold from the swim. They contemplated each other, and Bailey was every bit as fine as she’d expected, from the muscles in his arms to the span of his chest, the shape of his legs, his cock. The first thing he did was put his mouth on her. He kissed her face, her ears, her eyelids, her collarbone, her breasts. He laid her back on the bed, finally kissed her lips, then snaked his way down to the center of her. A shock went through Noelle’s body. She rose to meet him. She was so pleased, she came before he was through. Her head was swimming. She was floating, grinning, serene. He asked if it would be all right to be inside her, and she said yes. He asked whether she had a condom.