“Yeah. No. I mean, I want to kiss you.”
He cupped her face in his hands—big hands, she noticed—and said, “I have wanted to kiss you since the minute I saw you at that party.”
He did. He kissed her and she liked it too much.
“Actually,” he said, “my intentions are bad. I’ve wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss you. That day in my office, I thought I would go crazy not touching you.”
This is just sex, Olivia told herself. This is a good thing.
“Why are you wearing a hat?” he whispered as he kissed her throat.
“I’m a milliner,” she whispered back.
He knew nothing about her. She was a blank to him. So she lifted her shirt over her head and let him take one of her breasts in his mouth. Damn. It did feel good.
All of it felt good.
Until he said, “I was so crazy about you and I didn’t know you were a milliner or that you have a friend named Winnie or anything. I don’t know anything.”
“There’s nothing to know,” she told him.
Afterward, she felt good and not guilty at all. This was just sex. She’d had fun, more fun than she’d had in a long time. But she wanted nothing else from this surfer boy. You open yourself to someone and anything could happen. They could go out for a jog and get hit by a Honda Civic.
This was better. He knew how she liked to be touched, the way her skin felt under those big hands of his, the sound of her sighs and moans and breathing during sex. That was plenty. Olivia did not sit up and watch him sleep, the way she used to watch David.
Instead, she left. She made her way quietly out of his bed, out of his room, down the stairs, and outside, where the hot air felt good for a change with its suffocating intensity. Funny, Olivia thought, I can breathe better out here than in the cool bed beside Jake. Before she got in her car, she made sure she had remembered everything so that there would be no need to go back. She had her shoes in one hand, her hat in the other. And she had remembered to go without bothering to say good-bye.
At the outdoor art fair in town, Ruby liked all the bad paintings—the too-bright oils of turbulent oceans, the watercolors of lighthouses. She was eating her third cotton candy and pink sugar stuck to her chin. Olivia reached over and tried to wipe it off, but it was stubborn. She licked her finger to clean Ruby’s chin with her spit, the way a mother would. But Olivia stopped herself, her finger in midair until she jammed her hand into her pocket. Like a mother, she thought, pleased.
“You’ll do it, right?” Ruby was saying. She stared longingly at a painting of a purplish-blue ocean and a pink-and-yellow sunset. “You’ll teach Sage about art. And music, too. Mozart and all those guys?”
Walking straight toward them was Amy. After the book-club meeting, she had called Olivia and said, “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re crazy. You should not adopt that girl’s baby.” “Who said anything about adopting her baby?” Olivia had said angrily. Amy’s ability to see through every situation unnerved Olivia. She wondered how her sister had missed the fact that her husband had been having an affair.
Olivia returned Amy’s wave halfheartedly.
“Well,” Amy said right away, “he’s off.”
“Who?”
“Matthew. He went to the Galapagos Islands with Edward and the bimbo. Soon to be the next Mrs. Robbins, thank you very much.”
“Amy,” Olivia said, “she is a full professor of anthropology at Brown. She is not a bimbo.”
“What do you know about it? She has the fakest blond hair you’ve ever seen and I have it on good authority that she had a nose job.”
“The Galapagos Islands?” Ruby said. “That is so totally awesome. Didn’t like evolution get discovered there or something?”
Amy glared at her.
“Remember me?” Ruby said. “The pregnant teenager from next door? I cut Olivia’s hair? It still looks good, doesn’t it? Or do you think she could use some more pieces?” She touched Olivia’s hair in a familiar way. “Like here? You! says the chopped bob is in for fall.”
“I remember you,” Amy said, still glowering. “Haven’t you had that baby yet?”
“Tell me about it. I swear I’m going to burst. Like it could pop right out of my skin. I think that happened in a movie.” Ruby’s eyes settled somewhere beyond Amy’s head. “Hey,” she said, “look. That guy does the scribble painting I like. I’m going to go see.” She smiled at Amy. “Good to see you again.”
“Yes,” Amy said. “Great.” Under her breath she said, “I don’t like that kid, Olivia.”
Ruby turned around. “By the way,” she said, “did Olivia tell you? She’s my birthing partner.”
They both watched her make her way through the crowd.
“That’s an interesting turn of events, considering you have absolutely no interest in that baby,” Amy said in a flat voice, still watching Ruby.
“She’s all alone,” Olivia said.
“She does have parents, though, right? In the house next door?”