“Peter’s ten and Julie was six last week.” She grinned. “For her birthday cake, she wanted carrot and pineapple with chocolate frosting.”
“God.” He pulled a face. “That sounds revolting. Did she get it?”
“Yeah, I baked it myself. Birthday cakes are kind of my thing. Any cakes actually. Chocolate, apple, cheesecake, you name it. Don’t tell Ed Jordan—” she brought her face closer “—but I’d rather be home with my kids, frosting a cake, than doing public relations.”
“But then we wouldn’t be sitting here talking.”
“True.”
“How long were you married?”
“Nearly twelve years.”
“That’s a long time for a California marriage, isn’t it? I thought they all self-destructed after five years.”
She smiled. “It takes work, I guess. You both have to want it. In our case, I guess I wanted it more than he did. We had this really terrific house and sometimes I’d sit in the kitchen and the sun would be pouring through the windows, and there were cookies or something like that in the oven and the kids would be playing. I just remember feeling so happy. I mean, who needs a career? That was my career.”
“The perfect wife and mother, huh?”
“I guess not so perfect since we’re now divorced.”
“You didn’t want the divorce?”
“You could say that. When he told me he wanted to end it, I felt as though I’d been fired from the only job I’d ever wanted.” A quizzical smile on her face, she turned to look at him. “Do you have any idea why I’m telling you all this?”
“Probably because I’m asking.”
“But it’s all one-sided. What about you? Have you been married?”
“A long time ago.”
“Any kids?”
He shook his head. “So would you try it again?” he asked. “Marriage, I mean?”
“Probably not.” She frowned at her hands, folded in her lap. “It was a pretty powerless time in my life. I had no real stake in anything. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see it then. I just deferred to him without really thinking about it. Sometimes I’d decide I was tired of living under a dictatorship and complain. Then he’d do something really sweet and generous and I’d feel like a bitch.”
He laughed.
“It’s true. I don’t think I started out that way, it just happened gradually. A little compromise here, another one there.” She shrugged. “It’s an insidious thing. By the time we got divorced and I really looked at myself, I barely knew who I was anymore. I guess in a weird sort of way, I’m grateful to him for forcing the issue. It’s probably the only thing I am grateful to him for—except the children, of course.”
“And I was going to ask if it had left you embittered.”
“It shows, huh? Embittered and embattled. But wiser. I’ll never let myself be dependent on someone like that again.”
“But surely it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.” He wondered why it seemed important to convince her. “Marriage doesn’t have to mean giving up all your autonomy.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’m kind of gun-shy.”
A moment passed and neither of them made a move to leave. A breeze blew a wisp of hair across her face. He watched her push it away. Watched the silver charm bracelet she wore slide down her arm as she did. Leave, he told himself, but she was smiling at him and the breeze carried a whiff of her floral perfume. You’ve accomplished what you came here to do, he told himself, but the sky was sprinkled with stars and the moon was a pale crescent suspended above them. Leave. But each time he looked at her, he felt a yearning for a time when the future had seemed bright and full of promise and a small voice in his head asked, Well, why not again?
“This morning when I saw you in the lobby,” he finally said, “you reminded me of someone I used to know. Now though I can see that you’re not really like her, it’s just an expression you get.”
She watched his face. “Old girlfriend?”
“No.” He shook his head, felt her waiting for more. “No,” he said again.
Moments passed. The oleander bushes that lined the lawns trembled in the breeze.
He watched her face. She’d moved slightly so that she now sat in profile to him. Back rigid, bottom lip caught in her teeth. Vulnerable somehow. A wave of fierce protectiveness swept him, stunning him with its intensity. He wanted to put his arm around her, to pull her close, to promise that he’d prevent anything bad from ever happening to her. Sure, a voice in his head scoffed, like you promised Sharon. He glanced at his watch.
“It’s getting late.” She turned to face him. “I should probably go back in.”
Laughter floated out from the hotel, heels clattered on the flagstone pathway. Words clattered in his brain. Inside, the band started up again.
“Listen, Catherine,” he finally said. “I think you need to do something crazy.” He stood, held out his hand to her. “Let’s dance.”
She laughed. “I’m the world’s worst dancer.”
“Second worst. I guarantee.”
“Ed Jordan’s probably looking for me. I was suppose to listen to his speech.”
“Is that going to be a problem for you?”
“It might be. Tomorrow.” She took his hand. “Come on, let’s live dangerously.”
IF YOU HAD ANY SENSE, Catherine thought as she whirled around the room in Martin’s arms, when this dance is over you will thank him very nicely and make a quick exit. That would be the safe thing to do. The sort of thing that Julie and Peter’s mommy would do. The sort of thing that the Catherine Prentice she thought she knew would have done. But his arms were around her, and her chin rested on the rough tweed of his jacket and her lips were tantalizingly close to the skin of his neck, and the Catherine Prentice she thought she knew, the cookie-baking, homework-checking, PTA president Catherine, had gone AWOL. In her place was this strange, barely recognizable woman. A woman whose body turned into mush every time she looked into Martin Connaughton’s eyes.
“What do you think?” He pulled away slightly to look at her. “Pretty bad, aren’t I?”
“The worst.” She smiled up at him. “My feet will never be the same again.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.” Never, she thought as couples glided around them, shadowy and indistinct in the spangled light. She was bewitched. The evening had become this magical shimmering thing that much later she would unwrap and slowly examine like a precious gift. He pulled her closer, his long body hard against hers, hummed softly in her ear. Outside, as he’d asked about the children, the real Catherine had briefly returned to issue warnings, but he’d taken her hand and the words had melted like snowflakes in the sun. The music played on and, caught up in the dreamlike spell, they danced and danced. When the band played its last number and the lights were raised, she felt as though she’d awakened from a trance.
Minutes later, they were back out in the dark night, the air cool on her overheated skin. Reality slowly returned. As they stopped beside her pale blue Plymouth van, she felt like Cinderella. Her magic coach had turned back into a pumpkin.
“Very glamorous.” She grinned at Martin. “Probably couldn’t guess I had kids, huh?”
“What