I smother a laugh, “Are you doing ok?”
“I don’t normally drink, David,” she looks at me, a tiny hiccup escaping her lips, and giggles.
“Did you just giggle?” I ask.
She shakes her head. And does it again.
“You definitely just giggled.”
She shrugs, smiles, and laughs, “Yeah. I’m drunk.” She shakes her head, staring briefly at the corner of the table, and then back at me. “I don’t normally drink.”
“You said that.”
“It’s just…my family has a history, so…”
I nod. “It’s only one night.”
“Yeah,” she looks at the table, brow furrowed as if in thought. “Yeah!” She looks up at me, smiling, as if an epiphany just occurred. “It’s only one night.”
Dory returns with my card. I leave a sensational tip and hand Jane the paper bag of gateau. Dory walks us to the door, as I loop Jane’s arm in mine, partly to feel her next to me, and partly to keep her upright.
“I can call you a cab, if you want. I can bring Jane home,” Dory says as she opens the door.
“I’ll get her home, don’t worry. And I think I can walk from there.”
“Are you sure?” Dory asks.
Before I can answer, Jane blurts out “It’s not far, Dory. Look at him,” she waves a hand towards my torso, “He clearly works out. He can walk.”
I smile at Dory. “I can walk.”
She laughs. “OK, you two. Get home safe.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” I bring Jane towards the door. We step into the warm summer evening. The moon is out, high above us, lighting our path. Old-fashioned street lamps glow every fifty feet. Main Street is quiet. I look at my watch. It’s nearly eleven.
“You called me sweetheart,” Jane says, her voice soft and low with a hint of a smile.
“I did. Do you mind that?” We continue to walk, her arm tucked in mine. I pass my car, make a mental note where I parked it, and continue.
“I’m up this way,” she points past the only traffic light. “Take a right towards the orchard.”
“There’s an orchard?”
“It’s farther out of town. You can get to it on the road past your pond. I don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind the road?”
“You calling me sweetheart. I don’t mind. But I don’t go on that road anymore.”
I look down at her and smile at the rapid change of her conversation topics. Her hair is loose, strands bouncing across her cheek as she walks. Her eyes glance at mine, their deep brown magnified by the tint of her glasses.
“Why don’t you go down that road anymore?”
“Because I don’t go swimming anymore.”
“Why don’t you go swimming anymore?”
“Because you saw me,” she hiccups.
“Well, it is my property,” I smile down at her.
“Hmm,” she looks up at me. “I’m not sure I believe that.”
We turn right, continuing on the sidewalk. There are fewer street lamps this way, but soon the houses become farther apart, lawns slightly larger. A few lights are on, the sound of a television. Upstairs, the outline of a teenager on his phone, a woman on a laptop. Open windows allow curtains to move slightly in the summer breeze. Somewhere, a dog barks.
“I grew up in a town like this,” I say.
“I didn’t know New Jersey had towns like this.”
“Ha,” I grin, enjoying our regional antagonism. “Where did you grow up?”
“Not too far away. Up north. Rural Maine.”
“That must have been nice.”
I feel her shrug against me. “It could have been.”
We walk in silence for a while. “Rough childhood?”
She’s silent for so long I don’t think she’s going to answer me.
“Lonely childhood.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She tugs gentle on my arm and we cross the street, walking a few hundred yards down a hill, then take a right to a small cul-de-sac of bungalows, each unique and proportioned, with cherry trees and assorted gardens out front. I see a tire swing, a variety of colorful mailboxes, and at the base of the cul-de-sac, a lovely, cream house with a porch, two small trees in front, and a mailbox stacked on what looks like a pile of books.
Of course, I know where we’re headed.
“This is a lovely street.”
She nods against me, shifting her bag as we walk up the brick pathway to the porch. “I put an offer in as soon as I got the job. Could only afford 3% down, but I had to have it.”
“Where did you get the mailbox?” On closer inspection, it’s even more impressive. The stand a single piece of wood, but carved and painted so that it looks like a disorganized pile of books, each with a title written on the spine. The mailbox itself is shaped like a book, with the cover page as the opening.
“Penelope made it for me.”
“Who’s Penelope?”
“One of my friends,” she says as we reach the first step to her front porch.
I bend down to pick up a book and show it to her.
“That’s from Jessica.”
“Who’s Jessica?”
“Another friend,” she says, fishing through her bag. “She says my feminism isn’t intersectional enough, so she sends me books every week.”
I nod, turn my phone’s light on and shine it in her bag to help her look. I see several paperbacks before she finds her keys and manages to get them in the door.
“Ok,” she bends, unlocks the door, and straightens.
I hand her the book. “Ok.”
“It’s unlocked now,” she looks at me.
“I see.” I turn my phone off. The moon silhouettes her face and I feel like a teenager, bringing a date home, hands clammy and nerves jumbled. It’s been a long time since I felt this way, terrified and thunderstruck by a woman.
“Can you get inside ok?” I look down at her, those beautiful eyes. Those berry-red lips. Those glasses, sliding down her nose. I reach forward, gently pushing them up with the tip of my finger.
Her breath catches.
I lean forward.
“Do you-” she stops herself, takes a breath, and tries again, “Do you want-”
I bend down, my lips a hair away from her. I breathe deeply, her body
