Decidedly Married. Carole Page Gift
touch the stem of my goblet, lift it high and hear the ring of fine crystal.
“To us.” Michael speaking.
“To us.” I raise the drink to my lips and sip the chill, bubbling effervescence.
But my gaze is fixed on Michael.
He sits across from me in sport shirt and slacks, bronzed and strapping, elbows on the table, hands folded, his thumb nudging his sturdy chin. He is smiling, not quite smiling, just the slightest curve in his lips. He is smiling more with his eyes—lazy, half-closed eyes, warm with amusement Hazy blue, inviting, bedroom eyes.
I am swimming in those eyes.
Drowning in those eyes.
“I feel as if I’ve known you forever.” He says it without moving. Without disturbing that smile.
“Three weeks,” I say breathlessly.
“Three?”
“We’ve known each other three weeks. Don’t you remember? Three weeks ago tonight Mr. Plotnik’s drawing class began.”
“Ah, yes Dear Mr. Plotnik. He was in rare form tonight, wasn’t he? The Southland’s answer to Salvador Dali—those piercing eyes, that rare mustache, the look of genius—or insanity.”
I stifle a laugh. “Don’t be unkind, Michael. He’s actually quite good. I’ve learned a lot in three weeks. Haven’t you?”
“I suppose so.” Michael winks and says invitingly, “But there’s so much more I want to know.”
He reaches across the table for my hand. His touch is warm. I feel it like an electric charge shooting up my arm, like a tickle, a tremor, the thrill of a sudden dip in the road, the tummy-turning sensation of a roller coaster ride. My heart is turning somersaults, my skin turns to goose flesh. Holding hands never felt so good.
“You’re the best in the class, Julie,” he says. “In every way.”
My face flushes with warmth. “I am not. I’m not nearly as good as that one girl—”
“Who? Myra? Myra Mayonnaise?”
“No, silly. It’s Myra Mason.”
“The girl who looks like Wolf Man’s sister?”
“Yes. No! Come on, she’s not that bad. In fact, she’s good. Talented. Her technique is flawless.”
“You’re prettier, with those big, mahogany brown eyes and your golden hair tousled around your face.”
“What do my looks have to do with being an artist?”
“Easy. Watching you made it tolerable for me when it was my turn to pose tonight.”
“Really? And here I thought you hated posing. You balked enough, until Mr. Plotnik reminded you every student has to take his turn modeling for the class or—”
“Or risk lowering his grade. I know. Why do you think I gave in?”
“So you didn’t mind posing after all?”
“I said it was tolerable. That’s a far cry from acceptable.”
“I have to admit, you looked a bit uncomfortable sitting there in your swim trunks.”
“Wouldn’t you be? Sitting like a statue for an hour with everyone’s eyes boring into you? I tell you, Julie, if I hadn’t had you to watch, I’d have—”
“You really watched me? I thought you were joking.”
Michael’s voice is low, caressing, hypnotic in its intensity. “You really didn’t notice? I watched your eyes moving over me, and I imagined it was your lips. I imagined—”
“Michael—really, I—”
“You’re blushing Am I embarrassing you?”
“No, Michael. It’s just that you’ve got the wrong idea. I was looking at you as—as an artist, not—not as a woman.”
He presses my hand against his lips. “The way you’re looking at me now?”
“Yes—no—I mean—”
“Tell me, Julie. Do you believe in love at third sight?”
“Third?”
“Our third anniversary. You said so yourself. We met three weeks ago tonight. And we’ve gone out maybe half a dozen times. And yet, would you believe—?”
“Believe what, Michael?”
“Already I’m falling in love with you.”
My voice is hushed, full of wonder. “How do you know it’s love?”
That smile again, warmly seductive, intoxicating, breaking through my defenses. “It doesn’t get any better than this, Julie—my jewel. You feel it, too. I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. It’s like everything in our lives has led up to this moment.”
Yes, Michael. You were right.
And everything since has led away from that moment.
From that night, seventeen years ago.
The night Katie Lynn was conceived.
Remember, Michael?
Today: the reality.
I’m sitting here.
Sitting here watching Oprah Winfrey on TV.
Thinking how great she looks since she lost all that weight
Watching Oprah interview an elderly couple who were high school sweethearts and are getting married fifty years later after outliving a wife and two husbands. They’re holding hands and looking at each other like there’s nobody else in the world.
I’m sitting here eating the expensive candy Michael got me for my birthday—my thirty-fifth, heaven help me!—and I’m squeezing the round ones to find the chocolate cremes. Feeling guilty that I’m sitting here stuffing myself when I should be at work doing something productive. I would have been at work, if it weren’t for this head cold—persistent little bugaboo.
Julie had taken all the decongestants and antihistamines she dared. And she still felt lousy.
Wish I’d gone to work, she thought. Wish I’d never found that note. Dying inside over that note.
The words of the note reeled through her mind like one of her mother’s old-fashioned vinyl records with the needle stuck in a groove, playing the same refrain over and over:
“Michael,
Sorry about last night.
How about tonight?
My place.
Love, Beth.”
Julie couldn’t get the words out of her mind. Nor the questions. What does a woman do when she finds that kind of note in her husband’s shirt pocket? Written in a feminine hand on faded blue paper. Smelling faintly of perfume. With a phone number at the bottom in her husband’s scrawled hand.
What am I supposed to think?
Julie tried hard not to think about the implications of that note. The idea that Michael was meeting a woman named Beth. Tonight At her place. That he had planned to see her last night, but…something happened. What happened? He was home last night, irritable, distracted. But home.
Julie wrapped her robe around her as if it would ward off the chill numbing her senses. I feel like one of those children who has slipped through the ice and is hanging suspended