“Is it more important than your health? More important than us?”
“Us?” I asked. “There’s an us?”
She walked around the counter, right up to me as I sat there on the stool, and put a hand on my knees. “Of course, there’s an us. You know that, don’t you?”
She ran her hands up my legs to my waist, then put her arms around me. She leaned over, sweat still glistening on her forehead, and moved her face in close.
She went out of focus as her lips melted onto mine. She was hot, soft, wet all over. It had been a long time since I’d been kissed like that. It wasn’t what I came here for; at least I didn’t think it was what I came here for. But now that it was happening, I sure as hell wasn’t going to fight it.
What little semblance of a thought pattern I could muster was fading fast. I wrapped my arms around her and opened my legs on the stool, pulling her as close to me as possible, the inside of my thighs rubbing the outside of her legs. She opened her mouth, pulling mine along with hers, and we were inside each other now, hotter, wetter. I stifled a moan. I don’t know why.
“It’s burning up in here today,” she sighed, pulling away from me a few inches.
“Yeah, summer’s not over yet.”
She unwrapped her arms and took two steps away from me. “I need a shower,” she quipped. “Want to join me?”
The room was dark when I woke up, the last pale shafts of sunlight straining to hold on against the oncoming night. At first, I couldn’t remember where I was. But when I felt Rachel next to me, it all came back.
I rolled over in the huge bed. She was on her side, facing away from me. I settled back into the pillow, drifting, languorous, sleepy. The sheets were tangled around us, her back bare, her blond hair splayed out on the pillow. Her torso rose and fell slightly with each deep sleep breath.
Okay, okay, so I woke up feeling guilty. I’m not going to lie about this; we went at it for hours, like two passionate young college kids having their first real adult affair. Which is what we once were. I haven’t had an afternoon like that in years, and I savored every moment of it.
Only problem was it was wrong, and I knew it. It was too soon for her, too soon for me. And there was something about doing it right in Conrad’s bed when his corpse hadn’t yet settled into the grave that made the hair on the back of my head stand up.
Having gone running, Rachel was a workout ahead of me for the day. I could tell from the stillness of her body and the deepness of her breath that she was nowhere near waking up. I eased out of bed and stood looking down at her. I’d loved this woman once. Could I love her again? A lot of time had gone by, a lot of living. I’d loved her as a young man. Did I have it in me to love her as a man standing on the precipice of middle age?
She was still beautiful, full of life and energy and passion. When we were first lovers, in college, she’d taught me things I never knew. I’d never been with anyone like her. All she had to do was walk into a room and it would light up. Funny, I think about those days and all I can come up with to describe them are cliches. But that’s the way it was then: a wonderful, innocent time that lives in my memory now like my mother’s oatmeal and brown sugar on snowy days, or my father’s standing over the turkey with carving knife in hand on Thanksgiving Day.
What I needed was another glass of Gatorade. All this passion had left me with a raging thirst.
I slipped into my underwear and trousers as quietly as possible. I’d spent the afternoon relearning Rachel’s body, but for some reason I wasn’t comfortable strolling around naked in her house. I silently left the bedroom, leaving the door cracked open, and padded barefoot down the hardwood floors of the hail and down the steps to the first floor.
In the kitchen, I rinsed out the glass I had used earlier and refilled it. I stood at the kitchen door, staring out over the deepening shadows that filled the backyard. It was so quiet, so idyllic. I wondered for a second if I’d wind up living here someday.
I took my glass and walked into the living room. The huge window that overlooked the wide expanse of front lawn down to Golf Club Lane could have been a Frederick Church painting, with the glowing blues and reds of a luminist sunset. I stood there watching for a long time in the silence, feeling more peaceful than I’d felt in a long time.
Then it came back to me: my first impressions of this room. For that matter, of this house. This was a house owned by a surgeon, a professor, an accomplished, privileged, educated man.
And yet, there was no sign of him anywhere.
Out of curiosity more than anything else, I began walking from room to room, being careful not to make any noise. I didn’t want to awaken Rachel.
There were no pictures of Connie in the living room, nor any in the den. No framed diplomas, certificates, testimonials, the trinkets that men and women proud of their achievements show off for everybody else. Hell, three years ago I got a nomination for an award from the Middle Tennessee Press Association, a less than prestigious group if ever there was one. But that nomination letter-and I didn’t even win the award-sat framed above my desk until the day they canned me and threw me out the door.
But nothing here. I went from room to room, thinking that somewhere in this house, Conrad must have had a study or an office. Maybe it was upstairs. Maybe I should ask Rachel, although I didn’t want to come off as nosy.
I walked back into the kitchen, poured myself another glass, and sat down at the kitchen table. Rachel’s fanny pack was still on the table where she’d tossed it earlier. The zipper was halfway open, some of the contents hanging out. There was a bandanna, a ring of keys, a radio with wires leading to headphones, and, of all things, a beeper.
I looked closer. The overheads were off in the kitchen. The outside light was fading fast. It was difficult to see. I didn’t want to go messing around with her stuff, but there it was, the base of it visible just outside the bag: a small black plastic box a little smaller than a cigarette pack, with a belt clip on the flat side.
“Mmm, how about that?” I said out loud.
“How about what?” a voice said behind me.
I jumped about a foot off the chair and spun around. “Don’t do that!” I yelped.
Rachel smiled as she walked into the kitchen. She wore only a man’s white dress shirt, presumably one belonging to her dead husband. She walked past me, over to the sink, and grabbed a fresh glass out of the overhead cabinet. The tail of the shirt pulled up as she reached above her; she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Despite the exhausting afternoon we’d spent, I found myself wanting her all over again.
“Been up long?” She opened the refrigerator door, light spilling over her.
“Maybe twenty minutes,” I said. “I tried not to wake you.”
She pulled a pitcher of orange juice out. “That’s sweet. I woke up a few minutes ago, and you weren’t next to me. I was afraid you’d left without saying goodbye.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” I stood up and walked around the kitchen island. She poured a glass of juice, and while she drank it, I ran my arms around her waist and nuzzled into the back of her neck.
“You feel great,” I purred.
“So do you,” she said, but her voice was distracted. “What were you doing down here?”
I pulled my face out of her hair. “Nothing. Just hanging around. That okay?”
She set the glass down and turned to face me, my arms still around her, her bare legs rubbing against me.
“Harry,” she said, “it’s going to take me awhile to get used to this. I’ve been through a lot. I need to know you’re not going to hurt me. To tell you the honest truth, I’ve had enough of that.”
“I know. And I agree with you, things are moving a little too fast. But we’ve got time, Rachel.”
She came back into my arms, pressed her face into my bare chest. I could feel her breath on me, hot, short gulps of air as if she were in a panic. I brought my right hand up and ran it through her hair, rubbing her softly, feeling her next to me.
“All the time in the world,” I whispered.
