“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m not sure what got into me.”
“I kissed you first,” Daria said.
“Remember?”
“Well, I’m sure that we were both just responding to what an emotional night it’s been. Let’s not let it harm our friendship. Okay?”
The pain she felt was physical, in her throat, in her chest. He didn’t have a clue what this had meant to her. He could rationalize it all away. She sat up and pulled on the sweatshirt and pants, feeling his eyes on her, his hand on her back, and she wondered if he felt the icy tension coursing through her muscles.
“Well, Rory,” she said, standing up.
“This may have been nothing more than a response to an emotional evening for you, but for me it was something much more. I’m in love with you. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” Without waiting for his response, she turned and left the cottage, running as fast as the wind would let her across the cul-de-sac to the Sea Shanty.
(jfrace stared out the motel window, and her eyes ached from trying to pierce the darkness and the rain. Where was Rory? Where was Shelly?
She was certain she’d heard Rory correctly when he’d told her the name of the motel where they were planning to wait out the storm. She’d checked and rechecked the name and number. Every time a new car pulled into the motel parking lot, she followed it with her eyes, hoping, hoping. She wondered if some how she had missed them, and they were in the motel, after all, maybe just down the hall from her. She would have loved to call the front desk and ask if Rory Taylor ^ had kept his reservation, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t alone in the room.
“Do you want any of this?” Eddie’s voice came from behind her, where he was sitting on the bed. She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was eating chow mein from a carton.
“No, thanks.” She returned her gaze to the window, although by now she knew her vigilance was futile. For one reason or another, they weren’t coming. Dear God, let Shelly be all right.
Eddie finished the chow mein and put the empty carton on the nightstand. 5:
“Grace,” he said, “you’ve been standing at that win dow all night. Who are you waiting for?” He spoke so softly that she barely heard him above the sound of the storm. There was no accusation in his voice, only the gentle question.
“No one.” She walked over to the chair at the side of the room and sat down, giving up.
“Just watching the storm,” she said. It had shocked her to discover that Eddie had followed her all the way from Rodanthe.
She’d been angry at first to find him at her motel-room door, but now that she realized Shelly and Rory weren’t coming, she was glad she was not alone. Eddie had said nothing about why she had picked a motel so far from Rodanthe, and she’d offered no explanation. Now he shifted his position on the bed, and she knew that he wanted to talk.
He leaned toward her.
“I love you. Grace,” he said.
“And I need to know what’s going on. I’m worried about you. If it’s another medical problem, we’ll work it out. Please let me in on what’s troubling you.”
He was pleading with her, and she felt cruel.
“It’s more than Pam,” Eddie said. “It has to be. Why are you so secretive these days?
Where are you spending so much of your time? “
Most men might guess that a woman so preoccupied, so absent from home, was having an affair; but Eddie knew better. He knew she had nothing to give anyone right now.
“I’m all right, Eddie,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about… me, or about anything, really. I just want to go to sleep. And I can’t sleep with you.” Her voice broke on the last word. The thought of lying next to her husband in bed was unbearable. Because she hated him. And because she loved him.
“I’ll ask them to bring in a cot,” he said, reaching for the phone.
After a silence-filled half hour, a housekeeper rolled a cot into the room. Grace undressed in the bathroom, and when she returned to the room, Eddie was already beneath the covers on the cot and had turned out the light.
“I love you,” he said once she’d gotten into bed, and
Grace squeezed her eyes shut, pretending the clamor of the storm had swallowed his words before she’d had a chance to hear them.
She tried not to think about anything—not about Shelly or the storm or about Eddie lying nearby. Yet her mind would not cooperate, and the memory of the modeling job in Maui came to her, quick, sharp and unbidden.
She remembered every miserable detail, even the sun-bum. In the mirror above the marble-topped vanity, her shoulders glowed a fiery red. It was a good thing that day had been the final shoot, because her skin would not hold up to another day of Hawaii’s burning sun. But that was not the only reason she was anxious for this job to be over.
She had made great strides in her modeling career, garnering enough attention and positive commentary at the age of seventeen that she’d been hired for this photo shoot in Hawaii, along with three other models from Brad’s agency. It was her big chance, and she’d been thrilled with the opportunity. Right from the start of the trip, though, she knew she was in trouble.
She’d sat with Brad on the plane. It was always that way. The other models would hang out together, while she would be with Brad. The girls were jealous of her relationship with the head of the modeling agency, and they
