Big Little Lies(73)

Tom the barista had begun to seem like a colleague, someone who shared the cubicle next to hers. He was good for a chat. They liked the same TV shows, some of the same music. (Music! She’d forgotten the existence of music, like she’d forgotten books.)
Tom grinned. “I’m turning into my grandma, aren’t I? Force-feeding everyone. Just try one mouthful. Don’t eat it all to be polite.” Jane watched him go, and then averted her eyes when she realized she was enjoying looking at the breadth of his shoulders in his standard black T-shirt. She knew from Madeline that Tom was gay, and in the process of recovering from a badly broken heart. It was a cliché, but it also seemed to be so often true: Gay men had really good bodies.
Something had been happening over the last few weeks, ever since she’d read that sex scene in the bathroom. It was like her body, her rusty, abandoned body, was starting up again of its own accord, creaking back to life. She kept catching herself idly, accidentally looking at men, and at women too, but mainly men, not so much in a sexual way, but in a sensual, appreciative, aesthetic way.
It wasn’t beautiful people like Celeste who were drawing Jane’s eyes, but ordinary people and the beautiful ordinariness of their bodies. A tanned forearm with a tattoo of the sun reaching out across the counter at the service station. The back of an older man’s neck in a queue at the supermarket. Calf muscles and collarbones. It was the strangest thing. She was reminded of her father, who years ago had an operation on his sinuses that returned the sense of smell he hadn’t realized he’d lost. The simplest smells sent him into rhapsodies of delight. He kept sniffing Jane’s mother’s neck and saying dreamily, “I’d forgotten your mother’s smell! I didn’t know I’d forgotten it!”
It wasn’t just the book.
It was telling Madeline about Saxon Banks. It was repeating those stupid little words he’d said. They needed to stay secret to keep their power. Now they were deflating the way a jumping castle sagged and wrinkled as the air hissed out.
Saxon Banks was a nasty person. There were nasty people in this world. Every child knew that. Your parents taught you to stay away from them. Ignore them. Walk away. Say, “No. I don’t like that,” in a loud, firm voice, and if they keep doing it, you go tell a teacher.
Even Saxon’s insults had been school yard insults. You smell. You’re ugly.
She’d always known that her reaction to that night had been too big, or perhaps too small. She hadn’t ever cried. She hadn’t told anyone. She’d swallowed it whole and pretended it meant nothing, and therefore it had come to mean everything.
Now it was like she wanted to keep talking about it. A few days ago, when she and Celeste had their morning walk, she’d told her a shorter version of what she’d told Madeline. Celeste hadn’t said all that much, except that she was sorry and that Madeline was absolutely right and Ziggy was nothing like his father. The next day, Celeste gave Jane a necklace in a red velvet bag. It was a fine silver chain with a blue gemstone. “That gemstone is called a lapis,” said Celeste in her diffident way. “It’s supposedly a gemstone that ‘heals emotional wounds.’ I don’t really believe that stuff—but anyway, it’s a pretty necklace.”
Now Jane put a hand to the pendant.
New friends? Was that it? The sea air?
The regular exercise was probably helping too. She and Celeste were both getting fitter. They’d both been so happy when they noticed they didn’t have to stop and catch their breath when they reached the top of the flight of stairs near the graveyard.
Yes, it was probably the exercise.
All she’d needed all this time was a brisk walk in the fresh air and a healing gemstone.
She dug her fork into the muffin and lifted it to her mouth. The walks with Celeste were also returning her appetite. If she didn’t watch out, she’d get fat again. Her throat closed up on cue, and she replaced the fork. So, not quite cured. Still weird about food.
But she must not offend lovely Tom. She picked up her fork and took the tiniest bite. The muffin was light and fluffy, and she could taste all the ingredients that Tom had mentioned: macadamia, peach, lime. She closed her eyes and felt everything: the warmth of the café, the taste of the muffin, the by now familiar smell of coffee and secondhand books. She took another, bigger forkful and scraped up some of the cream.
“OK?” Tom leaned over a table close to hers, cleaning it with a cloth he took from his back pocket.
Jane lifted a hand to indicate her mouth was full. Tom took a book that a customer had left on the table and replaced it on one of the higher shelves. His black T-shirt lifted away from his jeans, and Jane saw a glimpse of his lower back. Just a perfectly ordinary lower back. Nothing particularly notable about it. His skin during the winter was the color of a weak latte. During the summer it was the color of hot chocolate.