Barefoot: A Novel

He got out of the car and hurried around to open Melanie’s door for her.

“Whose house is this?” she said.

“It belongs to a friend of mine,” Josh said. “He’s not using it this week.”

He watched for her reaction. She seemed nonplussed. It had occurred to him since the moment that Zach handed him the keys that Melanie would think borrowing someone else’s house was cheesy and juvenile. Peter Patchen made serious money. He was the kind of guy who booked a suite at a five-star resort in Cabo. He could have rented a place like this with ease.

Josh’s hands shook as he unlocked the front door. He checked over his shoulder at the neighbor’s house, where a single onion lamp burned.

These neighbors, according to Zach, were real watchdogs, and so one of the rules Josh had to strictly adhere to was not to turn on any lights on the north side of the house.

Inside the house, Josh took off his shoes.

“Take off your shoes,” he said.

Melanie laughed. “Ohhhh-kay.”

“I know,” he said. “Sorry.” The floors were made of some rare wood, Zach said, and the rule was: No shoes, not even if you were the Queen of England.

Josh walked up a curving staircase to a great room with windows overlooking the harbor. He turned on some lights and immediately set them on dimmers, way down low. There was a fancy bar with mirrors and blue granite and a hundred wineglasses hanging upside down. On the counter, as promised, Zach had left a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice and a plate of cheese, crackers, strawberries, and grapes.

“For us,” Josh said, brandishing the champagne bottle.

“Oh,” Melanie said. She walked to the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the deck. “This place has some view!” she cal ed out.

Josh nearly asked her to lower her voice. The last thing he wanted was for the neighbor to hear them and come over to investigate—or worse, to cal the police. Since he’d gotten the keys, a hundred ruinous scenarios had presented themselves in Josh’s mind, making him wonder if al this was even worth it.

But later, after they had used the bed (not the master bed, of course, but the best guest-room bed, which was a king and very soft and luxurious, a five-star bed, in Josh’s estimation) and after they had showered together in a bathroom tiled with tumbled marble and after they had consumed the entire bottle of champagne (this was mostly Josh, since Melanie was pregnant) and the plate of cheese and fruit (this was mostly Melanie because she was ravenous after sex)—he decided that yes, it was worth it. The champagne had gone to his head, but that only intensified his enjoyment of these moments stolen, borrowed. Josh turned on the flat-screen TV at the foot of the bed. He had never done anything normal with Melanie, like watch TV.

“What do you watch?” he said.

“Nothing,” she said. “Wel , The Sopranos. And Desperate Housewives, if I remember to Tivo it. And footbal .”

“Footbal ?” he said. “Col ege or NFL?”

“NFL,” she said.

He fed her Brie on crackers, and the cracker crumbs fel onto the sheets. Josh tickled her and she squirmed and Josh noted how squirming on 400-count sheets was far superior to squirming in grainy sand. He tickled her so relentlessly that she squealed, and Josh stopped immediately, cocking his head like a dog, listening. Had anyone heard them?

“What’s wrong with you?” Melanie said.

“Nothing.”

“We’re not supposed to be here, are we?”

“Of course we’re supposed to be here,” Josh said. “We are supposed to be here.”

He and Melanie wrapped themselves in white, waffled robes that were hanging in the closet and stepped out onto the deck. Josh found himself wondering where he might find six mil ion dol ars, so he could buy the house. So they could just stay there. So they would never have to leave.

He pul ed Melanie back into bed. “Are you happy?” he asked. “Do you like it here?”

“Mmmhmmgwshw,” she said. Her mouth was ful of strawberry. “Yeah. It was very sweet of you to arrange this. You didn’t have to, though, Josh.

The beach is fine.”

“You deserve better,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. Her eyes misted up. She touched his cheek. “You are better.”

You are better: She said things like this and rendered Josh speechless. You are better: He replayed the words over and over again in his mind, even after he took Melanie back to Number Eleven Shel Street, even after he returned to Shimmo to wash the sheets and wipe down the bathroom, even as he fel into bed at three o’clock in the morning. You are better.

The fol owing night, it was back to the beach.

“I almost got caught today,” Melanie said.

They were lying next to each other on an old blanket. (It was, in fact, the blanket that Vicki had given Josh to take to the beach with the kids.