Don’t cross him? Del had never spoken to her in this way. It was a tone of voice she had heard him use only in rooms with men talking about cardsharps. He had no right to speak to her like that. Hot fury coursed through her.
“You’re going to have a baby.” Del’s voice was strained, in a way June almost never heard it. “We have Marshall.”
Was it a threat? Did he also wonder about this baby inside her? Even as they repainted the nursery, even as they told Cora that a little girl would be named for her, even as he ordered bottles of champagne?
She had betrayed Del.
She had betrayed him, and he might know it, and he had allowed it, and maybe even he had understood. And that was worth something. But still, he didn’t have the right to stop her letters. He didn’t have the right to speak to her in this way.
She took the car and drove.
It often relaxed her to drive without knowing where she was going: to get in the Chrysler and drive west, toward the mountains (she might not stop until the sea); or north, toward the proving ground (she might watch a nuclear bomb explode); or east, toward the rest of the country (she might go home to her mother). Today June drove up Charleston until the road turned to dirt, and then aimlessly back on Sahara. She crossed over the Strip, and turned on Maryland Parkway before remembering that a school was right there and the children would be leaving now. Sure enough, a nun in full habit stood in the street holding a stop sign. June turned at the corner before the walkway, thinking she could avoid stopping, but it was not a street, just a drive into a small parking lot. She turned off the car. A giant oleander bush, with its hot-pink flowers finally fading and wilting and starting to drop, blocked her view of the building. She breathed in and thought.
It was possible that Del knew about her and Eddie. How could he not, when she had been so wild last spring, when she cared not a whit what anyone thought; when the sight of Eddie lying unrecognizable in the hospital bed had driven her mad? Del was not someone who needed to share what he was thinking. Of course he knew. He must have known then. He had said nothing.
What sort of husband would say nothing?
It was unbearable to think of never seeing Eddie again. But what other choice was there? She and Del owned the El Capitan. They had Marshall. She was pregnant. There had to be another choice.
There wasn’t another choice.
The fury with which she had taken the car and started to drive had already begun to ebb. Now, in this strange little parking lot, with pink flowers draped lasciviously across her window, June felt a thick heaviness descend. For an instant, she wanted to close her eyes and stop. Stop everything. Sit in this car until something forced her to go. Anything not to move.
There was only one way to play this hand, and Del had already figured that out. She had trouble gripping the steering wheel. Del had known before she did. But he was right. She would have to accept this.
June started the car and nearly backed into a man walking behind her. She heard his startled “Whoa!” and saw him in the rearview mirror.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t look.”
“No harm done. I hopped.”
He was young and very good-looking. He wore a priest’s collar, and June realized that the parking lot probably belonged to the church or the school next door.
“Thank you. I was thinking about something. I’m really sorry.”
“Do you need anything? Were you here to see someone?”
“No. I . . . I pulled in because the children were crossing the street. And I got distracted.”
“It’s not a problem, but if you wanted to talk with someone, I’m here. Father Burns, at your service.”
His blue eyes twinkled.
June couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Or you could talk to Father Fahey?” He seemed embarrassed that he might have been forward.
“Oh, no. I’m Jewish. I didn’t even know I’d pulled into a church.”
“Well, we’re happy to talk with anyone. Even Jews.” He smiled when he said this.
Why would someone who looked like him be a priest? She hesitated a moment, because suddenly she did want to talk with someone. Someone who would hear the whole story; someone who might understand. Weren’t priests sworn to secrecy?
He waited.
He was so young. No. She didn’t need to talk to a priest. She was June Stein. She knew what she had to do.
“No, I just made a wrong turn. Thank you, though. Sorry.” She was starting to babble.
“Sure,” he said easily. His eyes flitted to her rounded belly, and June thought, maybe he could bless the baby. Which was a strange thought, and unsettling. She drove away quickly.
If she hadn’t had those days with Eddie, then she might never have noticed certain things that Del did. The way he answered the phone in the study, even if the hall phone was closer. The way that Leo or Mack sometimes told her where Del was before she had asked. Even the smell of sweat, of salt, on his skin: some nights she noticed it, some nights it caught her attention, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.
And one day, when Mack offered to drive her home because Del would be late, June asked.
“Is he in a meeting? Do you know where he is?”
Mack wasn’t expecting this, and there was a split second between her question and his answer, a second imprinted on his face; a moment where he recalibrated what she had just asked and how he would reply.
“He had a meeting with some guys from the golf course. It’s a charity event for that new school on Sahara.”
June didn’t answer. She didn’t look at Mack. He was loyal to Del, and she didn’t want him to know what she had seen in his face. When he drove up to the house, she said lightly, “Marshall’s going to be so excited. Del told me your car was a rocket, and Marshall thinks it is a rocket.”
“Should I give him a ride?”
“He’d love it. Let me go and get him.”
She tried to decide if it mattered to her. What she felt. She wondered how long it had been going on. She’d noticed things only in the last month or so, but the truth was, she hadn’t been looking for anything. Before having her own secret, June hadn’t considered what a secret looked like.
But who?
Del didn’t seem to pay particular attention to anyone at the hotel. In fact, she couldn’t remember any time when she had noticed Del notice someone. She had noticed Eddie notice, from the first night she met him. It was an instinctive part of being around him, the way women looked at him, the subtle ways he indicated interest back. She’d practically done a study of it, long before she had admitted she cared. She and Del had sometimes mentioned it; heck, she and Eddie had laughed about it. So June tried. She tried to remember a time when Del had suddenly noticed a woman, and she could not.
Nor did she see it now. Now that she was watching for it.
He was a cool cat, Del. He played a long game, following beginnings out to their possible endings, and adjusting course before his competition knew the race was on. June knew this about him. Perhaps she hadn’t fully considered what it might mean for her.