“Okay,” she said. Thank God for words like “okay,” employable in any situation, even when what you meant was the opposite of “okay.” Claire had to get out of there; she was in danger of sinking into an emotional quagmire. She hadn’t taken her jacket off and hence she couldn’t busy herself with putting it back on. There was nothing left to do but turn and go. Was that what she should do?
“So I’ll see you . . .” She wanted to know if this was it. Would there be more, and if there was to be more, then when, and where?
“We have a meeting Wednesday night,” Lock said.
“Right,” Claire said. She had mentioned Wednesday’s meeting to the people who had volunteered for the committee; she would have to call and remind them. “I’ll see you Wednesday, then.” She turned to go, yes, go—and he took her arm. He pulled her to him. She filled with elation. He wasn’t ready to let her go. He kissed her so gently that she emitted a sigh, and then he kissed her more hungrily. He wanted her, she could feel him wanting her, she could feel his arms around her, trembling—with fear or lust or in an attempt to hold himself back, she had no idea, but she loved it. The person she was—a good person, a person committed to kindness, who showed up with a basket of soup and soap, a peace offering—did not do things like this. But Lock’s trembling, his kiss, was a drug, a rush, an attraction too powerful to resist. Claire thought of Jason, and of her kids, and they seemed distant, but sweet, too, and simple and safe.
What was she doing? She was too easy. She was the Universal Acceptor.
Lock pressed her up against the wall. He ran his hands up inside her sweater. He touched her nipples, lightly, with his palms. She gasped. His touch was electric. She should go now. She’d asked for this in her mind and here it was: amazing, foreign, scary. Because what came next, what happened now? This was all still relatively innocent; it had yet to take on heavy, cumbersome labels like “adultery” and “cheating.” This was leading to serious trouble, to something Claire would regret, something she would not be able to wish away or undo. And yet she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to pull away. She didn’t want to. His hands were on her waist; he tugged at her belt loops.
You made me feel un-lonely . . .
“We should go,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said.
They did not stop. They kissed. He touched her. She was afraid to touch him, so she kept her hands on his arms and noted how strong and solid his muscles were and how soft his shirt was. She ran her fingers up his arms to his shoulders. She touched the collar of his shirt and the back of his neck, and he pulled back and said, “It has been so long since someone touched me like that.”
Claire felt wistful, thinking of Lock, who was rich, yes, who had unquestionable authority, who was good-hearted and right and smart, but who was so lonely. He was not Derek Jeter or Brad Pitt, but despite this, Claire was sure he could have had any woman he wanted, and he had picked her. She touched his ears and the very short hair on the back of his head. She was manhandled four times a week by Jason, but she understood Lock’s longing.
“Really,” she said. “We should go.” Claire did not know anything about affairs, but she was an expert when it came to finesse and timing. These were the gifts of a glassblower—knowing not to blow a piece out too thin, knowing when to back off, when to cool a piece down. She felt that way now. They couldn’t go any further.
He released her reluctantly. The reluctance was what she savored. “I’ll see you Wednesday,” she said, and she slipped down the stairs.
As Claire descended the stairs of the office into the crisp, smoky autumn air, she felt like she was filling up with bubbles, or feathers. Lock Dixon had kissed her; they had kissed. He did not hate her, after all; he
liked
her. God, she couldn’t believe it. She had been thinking of this, of him, but carefully, circumspectly, because never once had she allowed herself to believe that he might reciprocate her feelings, her intense curiosity, her nascent desire. What she’d had, basically, was a crush, and crushes were never mutual—but yes, tonight, yes. Claire floated to her car, feeling as if she would explode in a burst of light, or flower petals, or paper confetti. She wanted to tell someone, and that of course meant Siobhan, but even as Claire palmed her cell phone, she knew she could never tell Siobhan. Siobhan—although she was Claire’s best friend and the closest thing to a sister Claire had ever had—would not be able to handle this news. This was not some half-baked fantasy about the trash boy or the UPS man knocking on the door and Claire or Siobhan inviting him in. This was not Siobhan putting a dare out there, and then jumping out of harm’s way at the last minute. This was real; this had
happened.
Claire could not tell Siobhan. She could not tell anyone.
On Tuesday, Claire broke her own rules (she didn’t even know she had rules, but as she climbed the stairs of the Elijah Baker House, her heart hammering, she knew this was
not wise,
showing up the very next day, out of the blue). And yet she couldn’t help herself. Bruce Mandalay had sent Claire a fax at home—the contract and rider for Max West’s performance—and Claire wanted to drop it off for Lock or Adams to peruse. Matthew was playing for free, but there were some things in the paperwork that concerned Claire. He was bringing Terry and Alfonso from his band (bass and drums—he never played without them), and they needed to be paid ten thousand dollars apiece. In addition, Nantucket’s Children was in charge of hiring four contract musicians, who also had to be paid. There were pages of production notes, which Claire could not make heads or tails of—spotlights, instruments, amps, sound systems, microphones. The rider specified that the band had to be put up in five-star accommodations, with all kinds of food and drink, down to the cherry Italian ice, Nilla wafers, and Quik chocolate milk, which made Claire laugh because it reminded her of late-night trips with Matthew to the 7-Eleven twenty-five years earlier. The most alarming thing was a clause at the end of the contract, which Lock was supposed to sign, regarding the fact that, because of Matthew’s drug and alcohol problems, Bruce couldn’t ensure the performance. A Post-it note was stuck to this page, written in Bruce’s hand:
He’s doing this as a personal favor to Claire, and wild horses won’t keep him away, but . . .
But it was Matthew. He was always at the mercy of his addictions.
Claire wanted to give the contract and rider to Lock as soon as possible. This was business. It was all in the name of attacking her line items before the meeting. She had every reason to be stopping by the office, and yet she felt obvious, as if she was throwing herself at Lock’s feet.
The classical music was playing. Claire knocked on the door frame and poked her head in. Her eyes went right to Lock’s desk—empty.
“Claire?”
Gavin Andrews looked at her expectantly from behind his desk.
“Hi, Gavin. How are you?”
“Me?” Gavin said. He looked down at his red-and-navy-striped tie—like something a prep school kid would wear—as if checking on himself. “I’m fine.”
Claire didn’t actually hear him say “fine”; she was too busy scanning the office—no Lock—and at the same time trying to discern if Lock was in the boardroom or the kitchen or the bathroom. No, he wasn’t here. She felt relief first, then deflation.
“Is Lock here?” Claire asked pointlessly.
“He’s at lunch with some donors,” Gavin said. “What can I help you with?”
Claire regarded Gavin. She didn’t like him, and it had nothing to do with his being a pale replacement for Lock. Gavin was best described as smug, snooty, and condescending. Also, he was hard to pin down. Who was he? How old was he? Claire put him at thirty-five, though he might have been thirty-two, or thirty-nine. He was exceptionally good-looking, with blond hair and clear green eyes and smooth-shaven cheeks, and like Lock, he always wore a shirt and tie. But he was persnickety and critical; the one time Claire had engaged him in a personal conversation, he told her that as a rule he never dated a woman more than three times. More than three times, he said, and they started sniffing around for a wedding ring. Gavin lived in his parents’ house out by Cisco Beach. His parents were older; they lived in Chicago and only made it to Nantucket for the month of August. The parents had money, though it was unclear how much of this trickled down to Gavin. He was forever complaining of the high cost of living on Nantucket (though Claire assumed he lived rent free), and he was always approaching the board with a pay raise, which Lock supported, saying,
He is very organized. And fastidious.
Overall, Claire regarded Gavin with suspicion—he was living here on Nantucket in his parents’ house, working as a glorified secretary, wasting all his obvious potential: his looks, his articulateness and poise, his college education. Why? He was perfectly nice with Claire and the other board members, though Claire sensed him looking down his nose at her. He thought, as did Daphne Dixon (maybe they even talked about it), that Claire was sloppy and unkempt, that she was a flaky artist who reproduced like a rabbit—all those children! And she was married to that carpenter caveman, who smoked and spat and fished and drank Bud Light out of cans and drove a black pickup named Darth Vader. (Pompous laughter, barely stifled.)
Gavin was Claire’s opposite: he looked like he went home and showered at lunchtime, his shirt and pants were crisp like the pages of a new book, and he was single-minded in his devotion to Lock Dixon and the seamless administration of Nantucket’s Children.
Claire dropped the contract on his desk in a way that was probably rude. “You heard we got Max West to play the gala?”
He nodded once, solemnly. “Lock told me. Congratulations.”
“Don’t congratulate me. Congratulate us. We should make a lot of money.”
“Indeed, we should.”
“Do you like Max West?” Claire asked. “Have you ever seen him in concert?”
“I listen to classical, Claire, you know that.”
“But not
only
classical?”
“Only classical. And jazz, every once in a while, on the weekends.”
“But no rock music?” Claire said. “No blues, no rap, no country? No music with words?”
Gavin smiled at her. The classical music came across as an affectation, as did the red and white Mini Cooper that Gavin drove. The sight of him in that car bugged her, though she couldn’t say why.
“This is the contract and the rider. I’d like Lock to look at them, go over them with Adams, whatever the usual procedure is.”
Gavin straightened the papers. “They will go most directly into Lock’s in-box.”
“Thank you, Gavin.” Claire beamed as warmly as she could.
“Is there anything else?”
Claire eyed the clock. It was ten minutes to one. Lunch with donors? Had he left at twelve, or twelve thirty? What if she left right now and missed him by a matter of seconds?
“I have some questions about the catering. The catering of the gala.”
“Mmmmmm,” Gavin said. “What would those be?”
Claire paused. She didn’t know how to handle the whole catering question. Claire had asked Siobhan to sit on the gala committee automatically, right away, because Siobhan was her best friend and Claire wanted to include her. But it would be truly awkward if Siobhan sat on the committee and for some reason she and Carter didn’t get the catering job. Right? Anyone could see the tough position Claire was in. She wanted to proceed fairly, but the more she thought about it, the clearer it became that Claire would somehow have to secure the catering job for Siobhan. Claire eyed Gavin. Was it safe to spill her guts to him about this? It was not, she decided.
“My sister-in-law is interested in bidding the catering job,” Claire said. “You know Siobhan and Carter, right? Island Fare?”
Gavin nodded once, briskly.
“So what is the procedure?”
“They are free to submit a bid,” Gavin said. “We have two bids in already.”
“You do?”
“It’s a big deal, the gala,” Gavin said. As if she didn’t get it.
“Can I see the bids?” Claire asked.
“Well, technically, yes. I mean, you are the cochair. But I’m going to have to ask you not to share the content of the bids with Carter and Siobhan. If you were, for example, to tell Siobhan what the price per head was, and then she came in a couple of bucks under, that would fall outside the parameters of fair business practices. To keep your nose clean, I would suggest you not look at the bids. In fact, I would suggest you delegate catering to someone else. That’s why you have a committee!”
“Right,” Claire said reluctantly. How to explain to Gavin that Siobhan was Claire’s best friend and Claire could not deny her the catering?
“Can you tell me who gave you the bids, at least?” Claire asked.
“I could,” Gavin said. “I certainly could. You are the cochair. But what you have to ask yourself is, do you really want to know? Wouldn’t it be better, from an ethical standpoint, to wash your hands of this? Because, you know, here in this office, we insist things be done in an aboveboard way.”
Claire gazed at the wall next to Gavin’s desk. Only eighteen hours earlier, Lock Dixon had pressed her up against that wall. What would Gavin think if he knew? He would never believe it—and if he’d seen it with his own eyes, he would have fainted dead away.
We insist things be done in an aboveboard way.
Gavin was weaselly, Claire decided. And self-important. He was the kind of guy who assumed that any woman he went out with more than three times would want to marry him, and now he was treating the catering bids as if they were the Pentagon Papers. But unlike three weeks ago, when Claire had known nothing about the gala, had done nothing and contributed nothing, she now felt she had some clout, some bargaining power. She had delivered Max West promptly, and free of charge. Surely she could lobby on Siobhan’s behalf?
“Is it really that big of a deal?” Claire asked.
“I’m just trying to keep everything on the up-and-up. You don’t want your integrity called into question, do you?”
Her integrity was becoming a tender spot already. “God, no,” she said. “You’re right. Forget I asked.”