She nodded, and he sprang up like a released coil, trotting away and up the stairs. She had seconds to come to her senses, to talk herself out of whatever came next. To determine just how far she would go. She was just passing through. Last week she’d talked to an old friend from college who had her own all-female law practice in Virginia and could hire her to do admin stuff. She would most likely start over there and leave this neighborhood behind just like she’d left it before. And this night—this man—would be just a fun blip, a funny little confession for the girlfriends she’d have in the future about the night she behaved badly. They would titter over her admission, raise their glasses in a toast to strong women.
When those girlfriends asked, “How’d you ever get through it?” she’d tell them about finding hidden money and eating McDonald’s and living with her parents and seeking consolation in the arms of someone else who’d also been left. She’d smile bravely and inspire them. The scene played out in her mind like one from Sex and the City, and she remembered Everett’s words. Maybe it could still come true.
She heard Lance’s footsteps returning. “They’re all out. Crashed,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice without even looking at him. He bent down and kissed her again, this time as tentative as before. He straightened up and extended his hand, an invitation. She knew just where he would lead her if she took his hand. She looked up at him and blinked once, then reached up with her own hand, lacing her fingers through his as he pulled her to him for the fourth time.
Now Jencey awoke in Lance’s house for the second time, but this time it was light outside and no nightmare had awakened her. She stretched, lifting her arms above her head as she listened to the birds chirp outside the window. She looked beside her and found the space empty, the sheets tangled and the imprint of a body the only evidence he’d ever been there.
She stared at the empty spot, grateful she’d not had to wake up to him. She wasn’t ready for morning conversation, for an analysis of what had happened, or even admitting it had happened at all. She’d given in to an impulse and he’d done the same. That was all. This was what grown-ups did. They moved on and found comfort wherever they could along the way.
She looked around on the floor for where her clothes had fallen, collecting them and putting them on quickly, eager to be dressed in case the girls came looking for her. At some point in the night, they’d discussed how they’d explain it to the kids, voices urgent and hushed as they concocted a story even as they unzipped zippers and undid buttons. They’d fallen asleep watching the movie, and Lance had offered her the guest room. He would go back to his bed, and that was how their waking children would find them, separate and chaste, as far as they knew.
She tried to block the images that came to mind as she dressed, her recall of last night instant and fresh in spite of how little sleep she’d gotten. She remembered how different his body, his smell, his touch was from Arch’s. Arch had been tall and wiry; Lance was almost exactly her height and broad-chested. Arch was dark; Lance was light. Arch always smelled of this expensive cologne that he applied a bit too liberally (though she never said so). Lance smelled like Dial soap.
Dressed, she turned her attention to making up the bed. As she straightened and smoothed the twisted sheets, her thoughts turned to the unavoidable comparisons she’d made, even as it was happening. Arch was aggressive and in charge in the bedroom—just like in life—but Lance had been tentative and solicitous. Arch had rarely spoken during sex, but Lance had been verbal, his voice a low, compelling murmur in her ear, telling her what he was doing and asking if she liked it. He was like the eye doctor: “Better this? Or this?”
Satisfied that the bed was adequately made, she left the room, and her thoughts, behind. She found Lance and the four kids in the kitchen. Lance was scrambling eggs and frying bacon, a pitcher of orange juice on the counter and a pot of coffee—blessedly—at the ready. He looked over at her the moment she entered the room.
“There’s your mom!” he said to the girls, who leaped up to greet her with hugs and kisses as if she’d been gone forever. Their eyes met over the top of the girls’ heads, and he winked.
“We finally got to have a sleepover, Mommy,” Zara said, beaming. “Isn’t that cool?” She thought suddenly of her parents at home, probably worried, or at the very least, disapproving of her staying out all night at Lance’s. She hadn’t answered to her parents in fifteen years and wondered how it was that she was back to making excuses as to her whereabouts. She wondered if they would buy the same lie the girls had.
Disentangling herself from the girls’ octopus arms, she poured coffee, added cream and sugar, and sat down with the kids to wait for the food. At the stove, Lilah stood stirring a pot of grits with a pensive look that told Jencey she wasn’t quite sure about all this. She attempted to catch the girl’s eye and give her a smile, but Lilah wouldn’t look her way. I’m not looking to take your mom’s place, she wanted to assure her. Because she wasn’t. She was just looking to fill the time between her old life and her new one, letting this strange summer back in Sycamore Glen be the transition she needed, a bench on the side of the road before she continued her journey.
Lance, oblivious, just kept smiling and cooking, looking like the cat who ate the canary, a secret smile playing constantly at his lips. She thought of those same lips on hers, how they’d traveled the length of her body and back again. Though it might’ve been the stupidest thing she could’ve done, at that moment, as long as she didn’t look at Lilah, it didn’t feel stupid at all. It felt like progress. She’d passed through a place she had to go through in order to get where she was going. It was nothing more than that.
BRYTE
Before she could get to her intended destination, Bryte had to make a stop off at Myrtle Honeycutt’s to pick up Rigby. He was part of her ploy. As far as Everett was concerned, she was just going to walk the dog, like any other day. She just failed to mention that she was going to veer off the usual path and check out the hideaway while she was out. Ever since the idea had taken root on the night of the Fourth, she’d felt compelled to go, to know. Though to know what, she wasn’t quite sure.
When Everett and Jencey were dating, Bryte hadn’t let on that she was in love with him, at least not to anyone else. The closest she’d ever come to admitting her feelings to Jencey was when they were seventeen years old. Bryte had uttered three words, exhaled like a sigh: “I want that.” She’d meant she wanted Everett’s love, but she guessed that Jencey took it that she wanted love at all. She’d spoken so low she wasn’t even sure Jencey had heard her.
There’d been a pause, then Jencey had given her a little smile in response and patted her shoulder. “You will,” she’d said, her quavering voice belying her words. Everyone knew that what Jencey and Everett had was rare. Jencey knew. But still she left it behind.
It was Jencey’s leaving that enabled Bryte to get that desperate wish. Still, she couldn’t stop the doubts that plagued her mind, made her crazy. Did he ever look at Bryte the way he used to look at Jencey? When Bryte and Everett had started trying and couldn’t conceive, it was clear that she’d never give him the child they’d dreamed of together. When he was Jencey’s, she’d thought only about getting him; she’d never considered being a failure once she got him. Her desire—their desire—to get pregnant became her personal quest, pursued the same way she’d once pursued Everett.