He smiled too, despite himself. “You know what I mean. Your roommate…what was her name again?”
“Sally Musgrove.”
“Yeah, Sally. She always looked at me like I was from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“What tracks?” Claire tried.
“Jesus, Claire, if we can’t talk about this now, as adults—who just screwed all night and professed our undying love for one another…”
She stayed silent, staring out at the passing trees.
“Claire?”
“What?” She still didn’t look at him.
“You can’t just not answer.”
Her lips firmed.
“Wow.” He downshifted the car into a tight turn. “I guess you can. This should be interesting. So…let me get this straight. We only talk about what you want to talk about?”
She pulled her lips between her teeth then exhaled as if it hurt her lungs to do it. And then the dam broke. “I hate my family sometimes—”
“What? Claire, no. That’s not what I meant—”
Her voice rose uncontrollably. “I know it’s not what
you
meant. It’s what
I
meant!” She slapped the palm of her hand against her chest. “I’ve hated them for so long…my cruel, cold, calculating mother, my life-of-the-party, insulting bastard husband, my spoiled, ungrateful daughter, all products of a society that I withdrew from decades ago, but that you—and everyone else—think I embody or represent or something.”
He slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road. It was rough gravel and sloped away from the pavement. “Claire, honey. Come here.” He reached for her and felt the way she leaned into him. He stroked the back of her hair and kissed her temple.
“I just sound like a spoiled shrew, right?” Her voice was muffled into his coat and she was crying stupid tears again.
He lifted her chin so their faces were inches apart. “Stop. It wasn’t the right time for me to bring it up. I’m sorry. It’s my hang-up. It’s my thing. We’ll work it out. I always felt like you thought I wasn’t, I don’t know, a good enough person or something, because I was Lebanese.”
“Why would you think
I
would think that?”
“Because I thought that was the reason you didn’t stay with me all those years ago. That I didn’t measure up. Socially or something.”
“Oh god. What a stupid mess.” She took the handkerchief he offered. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m really sorry, Claire. I guess it was dumb to think it was something we could joke about. Like,
Hey, wasn’t that bit of passive racism hilarious?
”
She ended up laughing at that after all. “Oh, Ben. My mother is a horrible snob, but I don’t think it’s about race or anything. But none of that matters. To me, I mean.” Patting her eyes dry and letting out a long breath, Claire tried to collect herself. “Now that sounds stupid too, like I don’t respect your heritage or something. I only meant—” She groaned and leaned in to kiss him.
He felt it like something constricting around his chest, her tenderness, her vulnerability. “Claire…” he whispered as she pulled away.
“Ben. I can’t…” She turned to the window again. “There’s just so much crap in my life.” She looked back into his eyes. “I want to keep you perfect for a few more weeks or months, uncontaminated by my messed up past. Is that so bad?”
He caressed her cheek. “No. It’s not bad at all.” His warm fingers snaked around her neck and sent a shiver down her back when he rubbed his fingers into her hair. “Do you trust me, Claire?”
Her eyes widened. “What kind of question is that? Of course I trust you. After what we did last night…and this morning…even the way you are touching me right now. How could you ask such a thing?”
“I don’t mean do you trust me with your body—”
“You’re making me angry,” she interrupted. “Of course I didn’t mean I trusted you only with my body. I’m madly in love with you. Isn’t it obvious?” Her voice was raised in a way that bordered on shrill. His hand was still resting on her neck, but she’d turned away again.
The silence in the car was suddenly profound, and their shallow breathing cut through the thick air.
“Not really obvious,” Ben replied quietly. “You sound kind of pissed off about it, actually.”
Her head whipped around to look at him. “
Not really
? Whatever do you—” She clenched her hands into fists and kept them resting on her thighs. The silence settled around them again.
“What are you doing right now, Claire?” Ben finally asked.
“I’m containing myself.”
“Well don’t!” He tried to lower his voice, but now he was angry too. “I don’t want you
contained
. I want you splattered all over the inside of this car. I want you mad and frustrated and crying and joyful and furious. I want all of that. All of you.”
Claire thought the pressure inside her chest might be a heart attack. The weight of it, of how much this man wanted from her, his persistence. “Ben, I…”
He’d withdrawn his hand from her neck, keeping one hand on the wheel and one hand on the stick shift, even though they were still parked on the side of the country highway and they weren’t going anywhere. He wasn’t touching her or trying to soothe her feelings away. He was waiting.
“Okay. Well.” Claire took another deep breath. “I…that will take some getting used to…on my part…I’ve never splattered. Ever.”
He turned his head just enough so he could look at her out of the corner of his far-too-perceptive eye. “You’ve never just totally lost your shit?”
She shook her head.
“Never yelled at anyone in the grocery store?”
She continued to shake her head.
“Never given someone the finger for cutting you off in traffic?”
She shook her head one last time. “Not that I recall.”
“Why not?”
“A display of ill-temper is fatal to harmony,” she parroted.
“Is that so? Who said that? The Dowager Duchess of Northrop, I presume?”
“Some etiquette book that she always cited. But I kind of agree, regardless of the source. How does lashing out solve anything?”
He shook his head in frustration.
She wiped away a slow tear that trickled down her cheek and almost laughed. “What are you doing to me right now? I think I might prefer the door being slammed in my face. I’m trying to keep it together, Ben. We should really go pick up Nicki. She’ll wonder what’s become of us.”
“No she won’t. She’s probably Instagram-ing half her classmates and has already forgotten we’re on our way to pick her up.” He gripped the steering wheel harder. “Claire, sweetie, look.” She kept looking at her lap. “Look at me, please.”
She met his eyes. For a few seconds, she was back in Scotland in her mind, reliving the moment she said those same words to Freddy. Only her husband had refused to look at her. She had finally uncovered his greatest lie—he’d had a vasectomy shortly after Lydia was born. And he hadn’t even had to decency to look her in the eye. She had ignored his financial indiscretions. She had even ignored his occasional sexual indiscretions. As long as she didn’t end up reading about them in
Tatler
or the
Daily Mail
, what difference did it make? But when she’d accidentally happened upon that old medical file, she realized Freddy had robbed her of far more than money or reputation.
“Neither one of us is keeping it together, Claire. We’re going mental, remember? I’m here for you. I love you. That’s what I’m doing to you right now. Loving you.”
“I don’t even know what that
means
, Ben!” She looked away again. “I know I want to be near you—I couldn’t even bear to be apart from you when you got in the shower this morning—but is that love? Really? Or is it some, oh I don’t know, some grasping after something that both of us have built up in our memories to be this hugely romantic thing?” Like she had built up her marriage? Pretending everything was fine. Pretending she knew what was happening.
As soon as Lydia was born, Claire had wanted more children. For years, Claire had wanted more children. She’d become pregnant with Lydia on her honeymoon, so she was confused when she didn’t get pregnant again right away. After a few years of unprotected sex and no baby, she had begun seeing specialists. On each of her monthly trips to London to visit her mother, she secretly started seeing a fertility expert. Freddy was tested and his sperm count was fine. It was something to do with Claire.
Eventually, she flew to a world-renowned expert in Geneva. She and Freddy still had sex on a regular basis—when she knew she was ovulating—but the more stressed out Claire became, the more Freddy implied that her barrenness was a result of her neurotic desire to have more children. He told her to relax and enjoy life. He shrugged it off.
The ups and downs of her cycle began to dominate her existence. For those two hopeful weeks when she
might
be pregnant? For those two weeks, her life seemed so full of hope and promise. Maybe this time. Maybe this time.
Then. She would get her period. Like clockwork. Practically down to the minute. And she would bawl her eyes out and wait a few weeks until the whole cycle of hope and despair could start all over again. Freddy had robbed her of so much.
But Ben was
not
Freddy. In fact, he was so far from being Freddy, she felt guilty for even letting thoughts of Freddy enter her mind when Ben was sitting right next to her. She cleared away all those wretched memories and lifted her eyes.
She looked at Ben and waited for him to speak.
“Listen to me.” He touched her cheek tenderly. “I am a forty-year-old man, Claire, and I am sitting here right now, in the present moment, telling you, I
know
what love is. And for me, love is what I feel for you.”
She gave him a watery smile. “I am dogged by fear, Ben. I’ve not been good at this. In fact, I’ve failed miserably. I did what everyone expected of me. I did what my mother told me to do—”
“Well then stop doing that! It didn’t work!” His temper flared.
She laughed, really laughed, deep in her belly. “Oh, Ben.” She reached for him and pulled him to her for another kiss. When her lips were right next to his ear, she whispered, “I love you, Ben Hayek. I know that what I feel for you is love.” Then she bit the lobe of his ear.
“Ow! What was that for?” He sounded angry but his eyes looked sexy as hell.
She smiled, feeling happy and slightly devious. “Don’t badger me. I don’t like it.”
“Good,” he said as he revved the engine back to life and pulled onto the highway. “I like it when you give me a little what-for.”
“You do?”
He was concentrating on the dark road. “Yeah, I do. You can bite me anytime. That’s all I was asking about trusting me…I want you to trust me enough to be uncontained, you know?”
“Ok. I’ll try to be a real mess.”
“Let’s start with ear-biting and work our way up.”
She smiled and rested her hand on his thigh again, letting it stay there until they pulled into the entrance of the boarding school. They stopped in front of a brick building with white shutters, just like eight other brick buildings with white shutters that were dotted around the campus.
A tall teenager came running out, long dark hair flying behind her, waving her hand. Claire and Ben both got out of the car.
“Hey, Uncle Ben!” she cried and threw her arms around his waist.
He hugged her back in a way that made Claire melt. He would be the best dad. The idea was just right there. She tried to scrap that thought as quickly as it flew into her brain.
Bad bad bad thought. Good good bad thought? Totally unrealistic. Totally—
“Claire?”
She had zoned out. “Oh, sorry! Hi, Nicki. It’s so nice to meet you.” Claire reached out to shake the young woman’s hand and was surprised when Nicki hugged her instead. She was stiff at first, for a second, then hugged her back.
“You’re so British! It’s adorable. Thinking I would shake your hand. Priceless.” Nicki smiled and turned back to Ben. “So where should we go for dinner? It’s so boring around here. Can we drive up to Great Barrington?”
“Sure. You want to pack a bag and spend the night?” Ben asked.
“No, I have an early rehearsal tomorrow, but thanks.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Ben pulled open the passenger side door. “Hop in the back, Legs.”
Nicki smiled and pretzeled herself into the cramped backseat of the sports car.
As Claire was about to get in, he dipped his head near her ear and whispered, “Thanks for doing this,” and kissed her neck. She sat and looked up at him with a grateful smile right before he smiled back and shut the car door. She had no idea what he was thanking her for, but she was happy about it.
They chatted about nothing in particular as they drove the half hour to Great Barrington. Nicki played guitar in a three-piece jazz band, and she and Ben were laughing about some new band that Claire had never heard of.
“What kind of music do you like, Claire?” Nicki asked.
“Oh, I don’t really listen to much music.”
“What? Oh my god. That’s like…sacrilegious or something. Ben is one of the best guitarists ever.”
Claire smiled at Ben, who shrugged as if truth was truth. “I went to hear him play last week. He is really good,” Claire agreed.
“But you don’t listen to music at work or when you’re at home?”
“Not really, no.”
“Wow.” Nicki was stunned into silence. “I can’t really even imagine what that would be like.”
“Maybe you should try it sometime,” Ben said. “Just for the novelty.”
“Very funny. I’d die.”
Ben and Claire laughed at the same time, then Ben said, “I think you’d probably survive it. So which place do you want to go to in Great Barrington. That unpronounceable Mexican place or the tavern place?”
“It’s Xicotencatl, Ben. It’s not unpronounceable; it’s Mexican. Seriously, you are so narrow minded.”
Claire smiled again, then her face fell. She missed Lydia. “You sound like my daughter. She thinks I’m horribly narrow minded.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Yes. She’s twenty.”
“Where is she?”
Claire had a pang of guilt. She wasn’t precisely sure where Lydia was. Claire had finally checked her voice messages after she and Ben came in from their long walk, and one of the calls she’d avoided earlier in the day had been a message from her sister Abby. She’d said she was done baby-sitting and Lydia had quit the charity project in Nairobi.