Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (33 page)

As September blended into October, traffic into the coffee shop slowed down to a crawl. Only a very few tourists fresh off of bus trips or East Coast yachting excursions wandered in, their wool scarves falling loose around their jackets. The days grew shorter and colder, and Thea did her best to keep herself busy. She made plans to attend a coffee conference to kill time for at least one weekend. She worked hard with Irina on multiplication and the Revolutionary War—harder than she had to at times—and she called Jonathan often to make sure they were all on the same page. She reorganized all of her bookkeeping for the shop. She spent long hours at bedsides in the local nursing home, reading books to seniors who had lost their sight.

“What's wrong with you?” Claudine wanted to know one day while they sat trying out new pumpkin-flavored coffee at the shop. “You've been so depressing lately.”

“She's depressed. Not
depressing
,” Tenke said. “It's finally sinking in that she's divorced.”

“I don't think so,” Claudine said. “I think she needs to get laid.”

Lettie too had a theory. “It's a matter of momentum. Meter, we'd say in music. When you were married you knew where you were going. You knew what came next. Now, the next bars aren't so predictable. But you should try to enjoy it—not knowing what's ahead.”

“Maybe we should let
her
tell us what's wrong,” Dani said.

But Thea had no idea what to say. Her relationship with the Sorensens—all of them—hadn't been so strong since she was a child. She and Jonathan were friends. Sue and Ken had not changed in their affection for her. Garret no longer wanted her exiled away from the people he loved. She had everything she wanted.

And yet, day by day, she felt her moods growing darker. Food was bland and unappealing; not even the smell of fresh coffee beans tumbling into a hopper could make her senses light.

She was petrified of being alone with her thoughts—for fear of the direction they would lead. For comfort she turned to the same tried-and-true standbys, and not without the guilt of knowing that she was supposed to be trying new things instead of relying on the old. When she had to be by herself—nights when she could not sleep—she read books with fast-moving plots that would keep her from lingering too long on any one passage. She watched movies about bank heists and road trips, or in the very worst situations, she took a sleeping pill. Her thoughts—when left to their own devices—ran amok. And no matter what trail her musings started down, they always found their way into the past, back to the girl who stood on the brink of a decision—and did the wrong thing.

 

 

As a young man, there was no one in the world Jonathan had looked up to more than his father. Ken owned a boat dealership, and he had a way about him that made other men feel comfortable enough in his office to put their feet up on the table, talk about their wives, and light a cigar. Ken had expected that Jonathan would go into the family business, and for a long time Jonathan tried—he practiced his handshake, he studied the art of small talk, he read books on negotiating. But in the end, he simply didn't have the personality for sales.

Eventually, Ken's focus on Jonathan shifted away, his plans for the family business slowly being transferred to his other son, the son who laughed louder than Jonathan, talked louder than Jonathan—the son who was good at talking people into doing things that they didn't want to do.

Despite the disappointment (it was never spoken aloud that Jonathan was no longer the favorite to take over the family trade), Jonathan had never stopped emulating his father. If there was one thing Ken could do that Jonathan could also do, it was to be kind to women. Jonathan had learned early on to treat women with dignity and respect—a lesson that Garret hadn't entirely mastered, since he was apt to treat the women in his life no different than his soccer or drinking pals.

Jonathan thought to hold Thea's coat for her when she was putting it on. He opened the car door. He asked what she wanted to order for dinner or what movie she wanted to see. He would have walked through fire for anyone who asked—but especially for Thea.

And so afterward—after Garret had stopped talking to her, after her heart had been broken and Jonathan's prediction had come true—he'd spent as much time with her as she'd needed, holding her hand, handing her tissues when she cried, reassuring her in every way he could think of that she was worthy, beautiful, adored. And when it became clear that she would need more to heal than words, he didn't shy away. He wasn't good at many things—not like his brother, champion of last-minute drives down the field, of coercing customers into the larger boat motor and leather steering wheels, of sweet-talking teachers into passing grades—but he was good at being there for Thea. He could protect her and be kind to her and help her in every way. It's what he'd always been good at.

Still, he could not—no matter how gentle, how patient, how good he was to her—get her to say
yes
.

 

 

Garret stood in the quiet of his apartment in Providence, drinking the last of the coffee that Jonathan had left when he'd moved out. At the glass windows, he gazed down on the city, the inky river snaking beneath fiery torches, the gondolas gliding silently along the water, the cars moving quickly over the bridges, the well-oiled machinery of it all.

For weeks, his condo had been empty. Irina had left a few of her toys behind by accident—a stuffed dog wedged behind the couch, a miniature Corvette parked beneath the coffee table—but all of her things had since been returned, and now there were no traces that Garret had ever had guests at all. He missed it—the noise and clutter of constant company. And it made him realize: he was getting older. If he was going to have a family, he needed to get started sooner rather than later.

But first, he had to get the roadblocks out of the way.

He drained the last sip of coffee from his mug, knowing he would not go to the Dancing Goat to get more. If he was going to see Thea again, she was going to have to make the choice to come to him. He fantasized about the moment a hundred different ways—that she was sitting on the park bench outside his work, that she stood when she saw him and said
I've been thinking
. He thought of coming home to find her in the lobby chatting with the doorman—the look she would give him that said
Thank God you're here
. In his real life, he'd even gone so far as leaving his door unlocked and making sure he was freshly shaved and showered at all times.

The minutes were murder. The seconds, each one a prick against his skin. The circle that he'd once thought was closed had actually always been open, and it was opening farther. But still, in his empty apartment, the phone did not ring.

 

 

When Thea arrived at Sue's house one day in early October, she was only half surprised when the lights came on and her family was there to yell
Surprise!
Irina blew a paper trumpet, and Ken showered her with a handful of confetti. She laughed and held open her arms for hugs all around.

“It was Irina's idea,” Sue said. “We planned it together.”

“Actually, it was all me,” Irina said.

Thea messed up her daughter's hair and glanced around—Ken, Sue, Irina, Jonathan, Dani . . . no Garret. She hated that she felt so disappointed. She kept thinking that any day now things would go back to normal. And yet she suspected they were starting to slide back into the old ways—when he and she showed up for social functions only if each knew the other would not go. She couldn't bear the thought of going through this with him again—for her own sake, but her family's as well.

At one point, Sue pulled her aside. “Are you doing okay?”

“Of course,” Thea said. “Why wouldn't I be?”

Sue's lips pressed into a fine line. “It's not my place, but you're not really yourself these days.”

Thea gave Sue a quick hug. “Thanks for worrying about me. But I'm fine.”

They lit candles and sang “Happy Birthday” while Thea covered her ears in mock horror. Afterward, when the wax had been picked off the icing and slices of yellow cake had been passed around, Sue sat Thea in a chair in the living room to open her gifts.

From Irina: a handmade clay vase that she'd been working on in school, lumpy and painted in smears of green and red.

From Ken and Sue: plane tickets to the coffee conference that she'd wanted to go to.

From Dani: a pretty new clip for her hair, beads and pearls covered in a clear, hard resin.

From Jonathan: a book about the history of coffee, which she already owned.

“Thank you all so much,” Thea said. “This is so fantastic. What a great surprise.”

“I almost forgot. One more thing!” Sue jumped to her feet and hurried into another room. When she came back, she held a small, hastily wrapped box in her hands. “Garret sent this.”

Thea took it from her. “Did he get held up at work?”

“I have no idea,” Sue said.

Irina jumped up and down beside her. “Open it!”

Anxious, Thea pulled at the paper. Inside was a cardboard package with a picture of a wooden jewelry box on the side of it. Thea opened the top and peered in: it looked just like the picture on the front. She had to admit that it was an odd gift—not really to Garret's taste, but she didn't want to let herself dwell on it too long. The jewelry box meant Garret had thought of her. She felt his absence like a clamp on her heart.

“How nice,” she said, and then she closed the box, set it aside, and smiled at her spectators. “So what's a woman got to do around here to get another piece of cake?” she said.

 

 

At some point, Thea had begun to see the shape of her bones under her skin. Jonathan had noticed too. He'd refused to leave her side after Garret had dumped her—guarding her not with any nervousness or obsessive crowding, but instead with a kind of steady, simple companionship. When he wasn't with her, he called. He cheered her up, brought her small things like a handful of wild lilies or a chocolate bar. Thea leaned hard on him, not with the sense that she was taking advantage, but instead, with the feeling of coming back down to earth, to the place she'd always belonged.

Jonathan had been sitting beside her on the breakwater, his skinny legs dangling down to the churning ocean, when she realized she hadn't had her period. She told him what worried her, the way she always told him things, with complete trust. He assured her. All they needed to do was wait a while. He made her feel as if her period was a thing that she had temporarily misplaced, and that it would turn up when she stopped looking for it.