Page 31 of Under the Stars

Audrey

Winthrop Island, New York

We drive back toward the village in a stupor. Sedge keeps both hands on the wheel, lips clamped thoughtfully together. I sit with my hands in my lap and stare through the windshield at the road unrolling before us.

“Let’s not get our hopes up, though,” I say. “She could be wrong.”

“She’s not wrong. Mallory knows her shit.”

I turn my head to examine his profile. “You have a thing for her, don’t you?”

“What, me? Hell, no.” He reaches for the dial of an antique radio with a single AM band. Some pink stains his cheek.

“Whatever,” I say.

“Okay, I did have a thing for her. A couple of years ago, before she and Monk got back together. I took her out to dinner once or twice. But it was pretty obvious I was too late. She’s known him since high school, they’re like—I don’t know.

Heartlock. They already had a kid together.

What can you do?” Sedge finds a crummy station and holds his hand there, pondering.

“Plus, he’s Monk Adams, right? I got nothing to counter that. ”

Without thinking, I announce, “I think you have plenty to counter.”

Sedge shoots me a startled look and clamps back on the steering wheel. “Anyway, it’s all good. We’re friends. I wish her well.”

“Sure you do.”

“Seriously, I do. It was over before it began, right? Just someone I maybe could have cared for, in another life.” He hits the brakes and veers the car over to the opposite shoulder, next to a meadow that undulates in the offshore breeze until it meets the horizon. “Come with me. You have to see this.”

“Sedge, I’m wearing flip-flops.”

“You’ll be fine, trust me.”

He gets out of the car and jumps around the front to open my door with a flourish.

I laugh and take his hand to be pulled to my feet on the warm asphalt.

The sun drapes my shoulders and hair. By the Fourth of July I’ll be sick of the heat, but right this minute it feels good.

Feels like coming to life again. Sedge tucks my hand in his palm as we tramp across the meadow.

I like the way his fingers feel, strong and gentle at the same time.

The weight of them, wrapped around mine.

For a second or two, I try to remember the last time David held my hand. Then the question flies away.

The breeze strengthens as we approach the meadow’s edge. Under the warm sun, the grass seems to grow before my eyes. The seed pods have started to form at the tips. A few more steps and the meadow falls away into a bluff and a sliver of sandy beach tucked around a small crescent bay.

“Horseshoe Cove,” says Sedge. “We used to come here all the time as kids. Catch some crabs. Make bonfires, roast marshmallows. Make out, if you got lucky.”

“How often did you get lucky?”

“Not often enough. Good times, though. How about that path over there?”

I survey the steep, sandy track that switchbacks down to the beach. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m game. But I will almost certainly end up sliding down on my butt in these shoes.”

Sedge lets go of my hand and turns his back. “Climb aboard.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’ve been told.”

I laugh and place my hands on his shoulders. I love the ropy feel of them, the heft and tension. He hoists me up and curls his arms around my legs and starts down the path.

Sedge’s ear, I realize, is larger than what I would call the average ear, and it sticks out like a butterfly’s wing. My mouth is right next to it. If I wanted, I could nibble the lobe. I have the feeling he wouldn’t necessarily mind.

“I have something to confess,” I tell him.

“Here it comes. You’re married, right?”

“Actually, I am married. Technically. But that’s not—”

He stops. “Are you serious? You’re married ?”

“Don’t stop ! Seriously, I’ll pass out. I’m scared of heights.” This isn’t quite true, but still it’s a relief when Sedge starts forward again at his steady, swinging pace. “What I was going to confess was that I’ve never ridden piggyback before.”

Sedge slows down to negotiate a switchback. I keep my weight balanced on his back. The heat rises through his shirt. I sense him struggling with my words. Struggling with his own. I begin to think he won’t answer me.

“Never?” he says at last.

“I was an only child. No dad in the picture. I had a stepdad for a minute and a half, but he died of cardiac arrest while my mom was on location—”

“Jesus, Audrey.”

“Yeah, it sucked. He was a good guy. Actually, he was pretty awesome.”

“How old were you? When he died?”

“Nine.”

“Ouch,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

I shut my eyes to gather myself. “Anyway, Steve was great, but he wasn’t the piggyback type, right? He was a studio exec.”

“I don’t know what that means, but sure.”

“It means I’m fucked up, I guess. Fair warning.”

“We’re all fucked up, Audrey.” He pauses to hoist me more securely.

I’ve kept my eyes closed, partly because of the sight of the bluff falling away over Sedge’s right shoulder and partly because it’s nice just to feel him—the muscles of his back springing and releasing, the bump of his jawbone against my temple.

The rhythm of his stride changes; we’re going around the second switchback. Almost there.

“I used to be married,” he says.

“No way. What happened?”

“It was right out of college. Everything was great for a couple of years. Then it wasn’t.”

“The classic starter marriage.”

“Yep. You could say that.”

He stops. I open my eyes. We’ve reached the beach and the tide that hurries to meet us. Sedge’s arms loosen around my legs and I slide down his back to stand beside him. To the left, the blackened remains of a bonfire stain the sand.

“Looks like the kids are still at it,” I say.

Sedge folds his arms in front of his chest. “So, what does technically mean? You’re separated? Getting a divorce?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. He sort of disappeared just after New Year’s.”

“Disappeared? What does that mean?”

I shrug. “I mean he emptied our bank accounts and took off. We’d started this restaurant together.

I thought everything was going great. Apparently it wasn’t.

So, it’s been fun. Chitchatting with all the creditors and stuff.

Realizing I’ve been living a fucking lie for the past four years, to condense the whole experience into a cliché. ”

“Oh, Audrey. I’m sorry. I’m a dick.”

“Believe me,” I tell him, “you’re not the dick.”

We’re facing the water together, side by side. Sedge’s arms have come uncrossed. He slings one around me now, holding me gently against his side. I love the way his ribs move, slow and steady as he breathes. How long since I’ve felt a man’s body against mine? How have I forgotten how good it feels?

Get a hold of yourself, Audrey.

“So where does that leave you legally?” he asks.

“In limbo, basically. It would help if I could find him. It’s not impossible to divorce someone in absentia, but it takes a while. Of course, if he turns up dead, it’s much more straightforward.”

“So I could hire a hit man for you and—”

I punch his side.

“At least I’m feeling a lot less shitty about Nerissa,” he says.

“What did Nerissa do?”

“Oh, you know. The old story. Hid her drug problem from me and then went off with the guy she met in the rehab I put her through.”

A snort escapes me.

A chuckle escapes him.

We break apart, too doubled over to remain joined, laughing from our guts the way I’d laughed with Mike a month ago.

A stick snags my flip-flop. I stagger sideways, catch myself on Sedge’s arm—maybe a little on purpose—and he loses his balance and brings me down to the sand with him—also maybe on purpose.

We land in a comfortable sprawl. Sedge rolls on his back and pulls me with him.

He lifts a tangle of hair from across the bridge of my nose and asks if he can kiss me.

I pretend to think. “I don’t know. How well can you kiss?”

His lips are so light and gentle, it’s like being kissed by a butterfly.

I relax into his chest and the kiss turns deeper but just as gentle.

His mouth tastes a little of tea from the Spindrift.

His hand burrows through my hair to cup the back of my head.

The brush of his tongue burns all the way down to my toes.

I feel like a teenager, dizzy and hot and breathless.

“Just like the old days, huh?” I murmur, when we come up for air. “Making out on the beach.”

“Trust me,” he says, “this is much better than the old days.”

—

Meredith’s in the pool when I arrive home a few hours later, swimming back and forth with the monotony of an athlete training for the Olympics.

A blue-and-white-striped towel sits on the table under the umbrella, next to a glass of clear liquid.

I lift the glass and give it a sniff, just to be sure.

Meredith comes to rest at the deep end. “Are you checking up on me?”

“That’s my job, remember? An addict needs someone to hold her accountable.”

She places her hands flat on the Connecticut bluestone. “Bring me that towel over there, would you, honeybee?”

When I lift the towel, I see her phone resting underneath. There are no notifications. Meredith hoists herself from the pool like a gymnast and drips patiently before the dying sun while I carry the towel around the perimeter and hand it to her.

“Where have you been all day?” she asks. “The inn?”

“Mostly. Did you know Monk Adams lives on Winthrop Island?”

The towel stills. “Yes,” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Meredith drapes the towel over her shoulders and starts toward the table. “My mother knew his grandfather, that’s all.”

“ Knew? You mean socially? Or in the biblical sense?”

I trot after her. She reaches the table and slugs back the water, then picks up her phone and swipes busily. A couple of lines appear between her eyebrows, a feature I’ve never before noticed on my mother’s forehead. I wonder if she’s had Botox, and if it’s starting to wear off.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I met Monk Adams today? It’s a cool story, Meredith. Even if it’s not about you.”