Paper Castles (4 page)

“Sorry about that,” Adam whispered out of the side of his mouth.

“It’s fine.” Savannah waved her hand as the young girl walked away. The words were a courtesy but her concern was real. They were taking too many chances here in this public space. She was being careless.

Adam picked up his cup and blew on the hot surface. “Damn, it’s always too hot.” He set the cup down, sloshing a tiny bit over the side.

She stirred her coffee even though she took no sugar or cream.

“Why do you do that?” Adam nodded at her spoon, his words wrapped in soft tissue paper. No edge of ridicule in his voice to remind her of Price.

“This?” She set the spoon aside, feeling comfortable enough to share trivial, intimate details. “It’s a silly habit, but I like the hypnotic feel of the spoon spinning slowly, the clink of silver against the china cup.” She lifted her shoulders. “It soothes me.”

“I think it’s adorable. So, tell me about your week,” he said.

She loved how he turned his chair sideways, his arm casually draped over the back, completely facing her. Blocking out the rest of the world.

“Good God, you don’t want to hear about my week.”

“You’re wrong,” he said as his finger touched her shoulder. “I want to know everything about you.”

He could have been playing to her emotional vulnerability as a means to a sexual end. She could be nothing more than a conquest, and it didn’t matter. His words were what she craved. He was a magnet and she was a helpless sliver of metal. She opened to the physical attraction but pushed back against revealing too much of herself.

“I think I prefer being an enigma,” she said.

Adam frowned at her.

“Really,” she continued. “If you heard about my day-to-day-life, you’d fall asleep in your coffee.”

“I’m not talking about your daily schedule. I mean
you.
I want to know what goes on in your head. What do you think about? What are your dreams?”

“That’s pretty heady stuff for eleven in the morning. I never discuss my dreams before lunch, darling.”

“I want to be in your head.”

“My dreams,” Savannah said, picking up her spoon and stirring her coffee again. She stared into the swirling depths as if she could conjure up the specter of the girl who once had dreams to spare. “Funny thing is...I got everything I wanted.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yes, but how’s that old saying go? Be careful what you wish for?”

Adam nodded. “When did you realize it wasn’t what you really wanted?” He reached for her hand, offering her the courage to speak freely, to pick through the dusty layers of her heart and pull secrets into the light.

“Pretty much right out of the gate.”

“But you’ve stayed all this time.”

She shifted in her seat. “I’m not really comfortable laying all of Price’s sins on the table. The fact is we’ve both made a mess of things.”

“So where do you go from here?”

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“I’m sure about you.” Adam picked up her hand intertwined with his fingers and kissed each knuckle.

She shook her head. “Don’t be.”

“Why not? Are you planning on breaking my heart?”

Savannah studied his face as his lips caressed each finger, his eyes not moving from hers. She didn’t recognize herself, this casually flirtatious person falling into a pair of brown eyes with a dark fringe of lashes. Losing herself a little more each week. He was so young and beautiful, she could…

He makes me feel young and beautiful.

Was that it?

He was young and she wasn’t. But when she was with him, she felt not only young—but full of possibilities. Adam saw her own potential and that was the drug she now craved.

Like an addict, she went searching for a fix every Friday, believing she had everything under control and she could stop anytime she chose. She was invincible on Friday. By Monday the high was wearing off and by Thursday, she was writhing with frustration and came crawling back for more.

“I’m not planning anything,” she said. “That’s the problem. Even with good intentions, people can still get hurt.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you,” he said.

“Get hurt?”

“Or do the hurting.”

“What a perfect answer. Since I can’t count on myself, I guess I’ll just have to trust you.”

“You’re in good hands.” With a wicked twinkle in his eye, he playfully bit down on one of her knuckles.

“Am I?” she said, laughing.

“I love to see you laugh,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful sound in the world.”

He moved in closer. After a quick glance around the room, he turned his attention back to her. Eye to eye, nowhere to hide.

“Let me make you laugh again.”

“You always make me laugh. And...”

“And?”

He was too close. She couldn’t think when he’d been this close to her, his eyes seeing past her defenses. She could feel the warm flush rush to her cheeks.

“Blush,” she blurted out.

“Blush?” He cocked his head to the side. “Now you’re talking.”

His hand slid under the table and a fingertip drew a circle around her bare knee
. Slowly, it inched higher. Her breath came in short little bursts. His eyes never left hers. He was reeling her in while she struggled on the other end of the line. Pulling her out of her element, while pushing at the hem of her skirt. When he got to the middle of her thigh, he squeezed the cotton fabric in his fist and she moaned.

The sound of her voice shook her back to reality. She blinked, her eyes breaking away in a worried glance about the room to see if anyone had witnessed her near-undoing. No gazes were on the two explorers at the back table. Conversations continued to flow, along with the usual coffeehouse clatter. No one noticed she had crossed over another line.

“I think we’ve outgrown this coffee shop,” he said, removing his hand.

He placed the line she’d been both waiting for and dreading among the cups and saucers, then sat back, like it was an unexploded bomb.

Beneath the table, her thigh burned where his hand had been. She swallowed hard.

“I’m listening.”

“Why don’t you stop by my place and let me show you some of the paintings I’ve been working on? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to talk freely without keeping one eye on the waitress?”

She took a deep breath. “Your place, then?”

With three words she acquiesced. Transformed from a bored well-to-do housewife looking to fill up an hour or two with an art class, to a woman with a lover.

She could have stalled and said, “Let me think about it.” But why? It was the only thing she’d been thinking about for weeks, running headlong down a grassy hill, basking in the glorious recklessness and the wind rushing over her face. Testing her footing against the incline. Not knowing if she’d fly or lose her footing and tumble.

Plans were made. She tucked his phone number and address in her purse, remembering when she’d done the same with an innocent flyer for an art class not so long ago. She had no idea then what the simple decision would lead to. She could have applied the brakes. Instead she hit the gas ignoring the sign warning:
Bridge out ahead
.

S
AVANNAH WALKED up the back steps to the kitchen. She closed the screen door softly and paused, an uneasy quiet in front of her.

“Neenie?” She called out. Something was wrong. No beginnings of dinner on the stove. No aromas dancing about the room with the promise of good things to come. She moved through the kitchen and into the dining room. “Neenie?”

As she made her way into the living room, she could see the older woman sitting on the couch, glued to the TV. “Neenie, what’s going on?”

Neenie looked over at her young charge with tears streaming down her dark cheeks. Without a word, she pointed to the television.

Savannah moved closer, the panic in her chest beginning to burn. “What is it?”

“Oh, child, child. The world’s gone mad.”

Savannah’s hand flew to her mouth but the moan oozed out between her fingers. The president had been assassinated. John F. Kennedy was gone, shot dead in Dallas.

Neenie was still shaking her head in disbelief. “I was watching my story, when the news broke in.”

Savannah sank down on the couch next to Neenie. Clutching hands, the two women gaped in horror, watching the world unravel on a black and white screen and an earnest, choked-up Walter Cronkite trying in vain to put it back together again.

Schools closed early. When her children arrived home, Savannah rushed to meet them, gathering them close. Their initial joy of being let out of classes prematurely was short-lived. They told her how teachers had stumbled around the hallways in tears. Their bus driver white-faced and trembling at the wheel. The normally raucous ride home had been silent. Out of the windows, they saw grown men and women weep openly in the streets. They watched strangers clutch each other, repeating the tearful news or communing in stunned silence.

“Mom, what’s going to
happen
?” Angela asked.

“I don’t know, Baby. But we’ll be okay.”

Filled with instinctive maternal protection, she tucked her chicks under her wings as an ill wind blew across the country.

Dinner was forgotten. Savannah, Neenie, and the children crammed onto the couch, huddled in a tight circle in front of the television. Savannah sensed every other family in the country was doing the same. A nation of mourners connected through the airwaves.

Savannah’s brain couldn’t make sense of the images dancing before her. Over and over, she watched a handsome young prince and his charming bride riding their chariot down the city streets of Dallas. Waving, smiling. Then shots rang out and the world stood still.

The horror dredged up guilt in Savannah. It clung to her like blood clung to Jackie Kennedy’s pink Chanel suit. She got up and paced around the room in an attempt to shrug off the ugliness of her behavior. She’d been gallivanting around, plotting indiscretion, oblivious to the consequences. Her recklessness was tied up with the assassination. One finger on a trigger could unglue the world and change the course of history. The match she had struck this morning could burn down her house.

She was sickened by herself. Her hands trembled as she poured vodka over ice and stirred the concoction slowly. She returned to the couch and gathered Angela close. They were still there when Price came home.

Neenie went to the kitchen to prepare a cold supper. Price wedged next to Savannah after flinging his coat on the chair. He ruffled PJ’s hair affectionately and leaned to kiss Angela’s head.

“Oh, Daddy.” Angela said, sniffling.

“I know, Baby Girl.”

Price glanced at Savannah and reached over to pat her leg. Once she would’ve been comforted by his strong hand, his touch assuring her everything was going to be all right. But tonight’s gesture was absent-minded and perfunctory. Nothing was all right.

“The whole damn world is coming undone,” Price mumbled. “We’ve got Negroes marching in the streets and now people think they can assassinate presidents.”

Savannah looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Indeed, her entire world was coming undone. And not only for the reasons Price mentioned.