Nick stared at her, his artist’s eyes dark pools of desire. He saw before him something he wanted. He took her by the hand and she followed him to the queen-size mattress on the floor. The bed was made, and this small evidence of some sense of order and discipline in his life was comforting.
When he touched her, she gasped. Pressed body to body, she lost all reason. Good God, had she ever felt such ridiculous desire? She’d slept with three men: a dancer at the company, a journalist she’d met at a party and dated for a few months, and then Kip.
But this? Never this.
Afterward, naked and breathless, side by side in the bed, she waited to feel guilt, regret, even surprise at what had just happened. But all she felt was an overwhelming sense of relief. If he’d pressed her for words, if he had been the type of man who wanted to talk to her after fucking her senseless, she would have told him that it felt like he had given her back herself.
Nick reached for a lighter next to the bed and sparked up a joint. He offered it to her but she shook her head. Blythe did not smoke, did not drink, did not do drugs. But she supposed, since she’d followed a perfect stranger into his house in the middle of the day and had had sex with him, it was not a stretch for him to assume she would indulge in any number of vices.
The pot was probably her cue to leave, but she didn’t want to go. She was in no hurry to get back to her life.
“I came here to dance ballet,” she blurted out. “Came to Philly, I mean.”
He glanced at her. “So you’re a dancer?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore.”
He inhaled, held it, blew the smoke away from her. “So now what?”
“Well, I got married.”
Nick nodded. “I noticed the ring. How’s that going?”
“Not well. Obviously.” She pulled the sheet up higher.
He turned on his side, propped himself up on one elbow, and looked at her.
“What do you know? Two artists who aren’t doing shit. A fine pair we are.” His gaze was gentle and kind and this touched her more than his passion. She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. After a long silence, he put out the joint and pulled the sheet down, baring her breasts. And then he moved on top of her, inside of her again, and she realized there was no “going back” to her life.
Could she last the week? Marin thought maybe—if she could just avoid her mother.
The more she thought about the magnitude of Blythe’s deception, the less she could believe it. She felt like her mother, the person who had always been the closest in the world to her, was a stranger.
She followed Kelly into the inn, the back entrance, through the kitchen.
Marin saw the note first. It was written on Beach Rose Inn notepaper and stuck to the refrigerator with a magnetized strip of photo-booth pictures of Amelia and Kelly dressed up for some formal event.
Catering fiasco at Thomas’s: they canceled! I’m trying to pull something together. Come over when you can. Love, A
“It’s always something,” Kelly said. “Come along—meet our friends.”
Marin hesitated. With Amelia and Kelly both out of the house, it was the perfect time to make her getaway. But looking at Kelly’s flushed, smiling face, she just couldn’t do it. Still, she wasn’t exactly in a party mood.
“I think I’m just going to hang out here,” she said.
“It’s up to you, but I really wouldn’t pass this up. You haven’t experienced Provincetown until you’ve attended an ‘I made it to fifty-five’ party.”
“I’ve been to birthday parties for people older than fifty-five.”
“With AIDS?”
Oh. “Okay. Give me five minutes to change clothes.”
The number of restaurants and shops dwindled as they headed west on Commercial. They walked until they reached a lovely shingled cottage with turquoise shutters and matching rocking chairs on the front porch. Kelly bounded up the stone steps waving at two men dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts. One was African American with salt-and-pepper hair and glasses; the other was tall and angular with the strong jaw and cleft chin of an old-time movie star.
“How’s the birthday boy?” Kelly asked, hugging the silver fox.
“Thomas is having a good day today,” he said, then he smiled at Marin. “I’m Bart. Welcome to our home.”
“Marin,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Oh, the granddaughter,” the second guy said.
Under other circumstances, this would have annoyed her. Why should these strangers know her personal business? But she was the one crashing their party.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m Paul. Come on in. Amelia’s in the kitchen,” he said, tugging her along. Marin followed him, leaving Kelly deep in conversation with Bart.
“So how long are you in town for?” Paul said.
“Just until Saturday morning,” she said. It’s only a few more days, she told herself.
The house, like Amelia and Kelly’s, was a perfect beachy-shabby chic. The living room had a skylight and wall-to-wall bookshelves filled with hardcovers. Marin would have loved to check out the titles but Paul ushered her toward the kitchen.
Thomas and Bart’s kitchen was spacious and full of light, with a farmhouse sink, pale hardwood floors, and a white marble island. It was bright with green accents—lime-green Shaker cabinets, a bowl of Granny Smith apples, a row of large Perrier bottles on the countertop.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Paul said to Amelia.
She looked up from the counter.
“Hi, dear—I’m elbows-deep in dough or I’d give you a welcome hug. Make yourself at home. It’s going to get very crowded here in about an hour, so if I were you I’d stake out a spot and relax.”
Three men bounded into the kitchen and started picking from a tray of artfully arranged crudités. Amelia swatted them away while ticking off introductions.
Marin knew she would never remember all the names. The men were unabashedly fascinated and delighted by her sudden appearance in Amelia’s life.
“So you’re Rachel’s sister?” one man asked.
“Half sister,” Marin said, the words still unbelievable to her own ears. But somehow, in this place, it wasn’t quite as strange as it might have been somewhere else. “Is Rachel here?” she asked Amelia.
“Out by the pool,” Amelia said.
Marin grabbed a carrot stick and headed out through the French doors to the back of the house. A porch overlooked a flower garden, an old-fashioned gazebo, and a small swimming pool. That’s where she spotted Rachel, perched on the edge of a chair, talking to a remarkably good-looking guy. He looked like one of the Hemsworth brothers, Chris or Liam or whatever their names were. Either way, definitely swoon-worthy.
And she couldn’t help but notice that her sister seemed to be swooning.
Rachel had been surprised, when she arrived at the house, at how quickly Amelia was enveloped by her friends and how extraneous Rachel instantly felt. Oh, she was welcome. And she was certainly a curiosity.
“Nick’s daughter. After all this time. Remarkable!”