Tessa, she thinks. Her name is Tessa.
The sweet soft-whisper of a name conjures a gentle, mirthful animal lover. The kind of woman who wears brightly colored bohemian scarves, designs jewelry, and breast-fed until her children reached a year, maybe longer. A woman who ice-skates on frozen ponds in the winter, plants forget-me-nots in the spring, goes fishing in the summer, and burns incense year-round. A woman with one dimple or a small gap between her front teeth or some other charming physical quirk.
Valerie realizes suddenly that she subconsciously hoped for a harder, sleeker name, like Brooke or Reese. Or a frivolous, spoiled name, like Annabel or Sabrina. Or a fusty, stodgy one—like Lois or Frances. Or one so commonplace in their generation that it lacked any connotation, like Stephanie or Kimberly. But no—Nick married a Tessa, a name that fills her with unexpected sadness more troubling than the guilt constantly playing at the edges of her mind. A guilt she refuses to examine too closely for fear that it will interfere with what she desperately wants.
Nick touches his bare big toe to hers, their legs outstretched on the coffee table. She squeezes his hand, as if to squelch the guilt and shock that she is capable of doing such a thing. That she is here, like this, with a married man. That she hopes they will soon be touching everywhere, and that maybe, someday, he will belong to her. It is an outlandish, selfish dream, but one that seems frighteningly attainable.
But first, she must tell him about the moment today in the parking lot, the look on Romy’s face, an omission she fears might be significant enough to divert the course they are on. So she holds his hand tighter and says, “I have to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” he says, raising her hand to his mouth, kissing her thumb.
“Today,” she says. “In the parking lot after school . . .”
“Hmm-mm?” he says, looking at her, a trace of worry appearing between his brows. He swirls the wine in his glass, then takes a sip.
She feels herself falter, but forges on. “When we were standing by my car . . . I saw Romy. She was watching us. She saw us together.”
He nods, looking worried, but pretending not to be as he says, “Well. That figures, doesn’t it?”
Valerie isn’t sure what he means by this so she says, “Do you think it’s a problem?”
Nick nods and says, “It could be.”
This is not the answer she hoped for. “Really?” she asks.
He nods and says, “My wife knows her.”
“They’re friends?” she asks, horrified.
“Not exactly . . . They are more . . . acquaintances,” he says. “They have a mutual good friend.”
“Do you think it will get back to her?” Valerie asks, wondering how he can stay so calm, why he isn’t rushing to the phone to do damage control.
“Maybe . . . Probably. Knowing this town. These women. Yeah, it’ll probably get back to Tess eventually . . .”
Valerie turns over the nickname in her mind, no less troubling than the full form of her name. Tess. A woman who throws Frisbees to dogs, sings eighties songs into her shampoo bottle, does handstands in the fresh summer grass, wears her hair in French braids.
“Are you worried?” she asks, trying to gauge exactly what is going on in his head—and more important, his marriage.
Nick turns to face her, resting one arm along the back of the couch. “Romy didn’t see us like this,” he says, touching her shoulder and leaning in to kiss her forehead. “We were just standing there, weren’t we?”
“Yeah . . . but how will you explain being there in the first place? At the school with us?” As soon as the question is out, she realizes that they have officially become co-conspirators.
Nick says, “I’ll have to tell her that we’re friends. That we’ve become close . . . That Charlie called me when he got hurt at school. And that I came over. As his doctor and your friend.”
“Has anything like this ever . . . happened before? Have you ever become close to a patient? Or a patient’s family member?” she asks.
“No,” Nick says quickly. “Not like this. Nothing like this.”
Valerie nods, knowing she should move on. Instead, she presses him. “What will she say? . . . If she finds out?”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “I can’t even think about that right now. . .”
“But should you?” Valerie says. “Should we talk . . . about it?”
Nick bites his lower lip and says, “Okay. Maybe we should.”
She gives him a blank stare, indicating that it is his conversation to begin.
He clears his throat and says, “What do you want to know? I will tell you anything you want to know.”
“Are you happy?” she asks—one of the questions she vowed not to ask. She did not want this night to be about his marriage. She wanted it to be about them, only. But such a thing is not really possible. She knows this.