Holding Hands Page 2

  So long ago, she couldn’t remember.

  Chapter Two

  “FUR-LINED HANDCUFFS,” Diane said. “Maybe a silk whip. Haven’t you read those books?”

  No, Meredith had not read those books. She was probably the only woman in town, if not the entire world, who hadn’t read the recent bestselling trilogy about a young woman discovering the joys of sexual bondage and submission.

  She sat across the circular table from Diane in the employee lounge at the headquarters of the Saver-Center supermarket chain. Her closest friend at work, Diane worked in the HR department. They ate lunch together whenever they could. Today Meredith picked at a salad—no dressing, in order to save calories—while Diane devoured a Mediterranean wrap stuffed with roasted peppers, plum tomatoes, mozzarella, mushrooms and olives, the thin, rolled bread glistening with oil. Diane had miraculous metabolism. She always wolfed down huge lunches and never gained weight. If Meredith didn’t love her, she’d hate her.

  “I’m not going to start playing sadomasochist games with him. Just the thought of having my hands bound behind my back...” Meredith winced.

  “It’s all about ceding control,” Diane explained before taking a lusty bite of her sandwich. She chewed, swallowed, continued: “It’s about trust. You trust him to treat you well while you’re within his power.”

  “No. No whips, no handcuffs.” Meredith could just imagine Scott trussing her up so she couldn’t escape and then falling asleep because he’d been up since five that morning. “It’s just that—” she speared a limp teardrop-shaped leaf of spinach with her fork and sighed “—we don’t connect anymore. We hardly even talk, and when we do it’s about work, or the kids, or the dog, or my mother. We’re in such a rut.” She didn’t add that she was worried about the adorable young female students he came in contact with every day, students who really needed to see him, any time, day or night.

  Nor did she add that she was jealous of her mother, who got to hold hands with Charlie. Her septuagenarian mother was enjoying the thrill of a new love, the excitement and wonder of it, the tickle in her belly when he looked her way, the wash of warmth or maybe even heat when he laced his fingers through hers. How could you admit that you envied your mother’s social life when you were married to a gorgeous guy and your mother lived in an assisted-living community?

  “What about some sexy lingerie?” Diane suggested. “French bra, thong panties...”

  That would work only if Scott bothered to look at her. He’d never been much for seductive underwear, but she supposed he wouldn’t object if she splurged on a few items from Victoria’s Secret.

  If he even noticed.

  “Maybe what you need to do is get away,” Diane suggested. “Whenever things start getting stale with Pete and me, we take a long weekend somewhere with a hot-tub or a fireplace. One time we went to this spa and got his-and-hers massages...” Her blissful sigh implied that those massages led to a lot more than hand-holding.

  “Getting away would be nice,” Meredith said wistfully. “Too bad we’re in the midst of leaf-peeper season.” New England’s hotels and inns always filled up during the autumn months as tourists came to admire the fall foliage. Most of the available rooms were usually booked a year in advance.

  Undaunted, Diane dug her cell phone from her purse. She held up a finger as if to say, Watch this! and dialed a number. “Hi, Cindy? It’s Diane Carlito. Yeah, hi, how are you? Listen, my friend here needs a room for the weekend... Any weekend. Preferably this month.”

  Meredith shook her head. This month? She needed time to plan. Time to convince Scott.

  “I know. ’Tis the season. But come on, Cindy. You’re on the shore, not in the mountains. You don’t have any trees with colorful leaves on them, and no one goes to the Cape in October... Yeah, yeah, I know. People do go to the Cape in October. Just a room. Two nights... Well, look again... Okay!” Diane beamed Meredith a smile brighter than the noon sun, extended her hand and mouthed, “Credit card.”

  Too stunned to argue, Meredith pulled her wallet from her bag and handed her Visa card to Diane, who read the account number and expiration date into the phone. “Excellent,” she said when she was done. “Email address?” She handed her cell phone to Meredith. “Give her your email address so she can send you a confirmation.”

  Dazed, Meredith took the phone. This was crazy. She had no idea where she’d booked a room, let alone how much it would cost. Yet she heard herself recite her email address, her postal address and her phone number to Cindy, whoever the hell she was.

  “So, we’ll see you next Friday,” Cindy said. “I wish I had a nicer room for you, but for one-eighty a night and on such short notice, this is the best I can do.”

  “Thank you,” Meredith said weakly, then handed the phone back to Diane. “Next Friday?”

  “That was the only time she had a cabin open,” Diane explained as she tapped her phone’s screen to disconnect the call. “And that’s only because someone canceled at the last-minute.”

  “For one hundred eighty dollars, it can’t be much of a cabin.”

  “It’s probably not,” Diane said gleefully. “She owns a B&B and a cluster of cabins a couple of blocks from the beach in West Dennis. But you don’t need much. Just a big bed.”

  “Next Friday?”

  “Be spontaneous,” Diane advised. “Scott will love you for it.”

  ***

  SCOTT DID NOT love her for it. “What are you, crazy?” he roared when she told him over dinner that night.

  “No, I’m not crazy.” I’m trying to revive our moribund marriage, you idiot.

  “I teach on Fridays.”

  “I work on Fridays, too. We’ll head out after work. We can have a late dinner when we get to the Cape. This time of year, there won’t be too much traffic. Maybe we can both arrange to leave work a little early.”

  “I can’t cancel my office hours just because you decided on a whim that you wanted to go to Cape Cod. What do you even know about this place?”

  “It’s owned by a friend of Diane’s,” she said, wondering whether young, accommodating Caitlin was planning to visit his office during those Friday afternoon office hours. “I gather it’s kind of rustic. It’ll be fun. An adventure.”

  “What are you going to do with the dog?” he asked. “Bring him along?”

  “I’ll ask a neighbor to look after him. Or maybe Diane can take him for the weekend.”

  Scott exhaled. He looked pained as he regarded the food on his dinner plate: a mound of last night’s stir-fry, a few forkfuls of salmon, a chunk of rib-eye steak.

  Maybe this getaway plan was as poorly planned as the meal. Just a last-minute idea: toss something out and hope it works. Like a Hail-Mary pass in one of Scott’s beloved football games.

  “We really need to do this, Scott,” she said. “We—”

  The phone rang.

  Rolling her eyes, she pushed away from the table and lifted the receiver. “Hi, honey, it’s Mom,” her mother said.

  “I can’t talk right now,” Meredith told her, glancing at the table. Scott dug into his food, but he didn’t appear to be enjoying it much.

  “I just wanted to tell you, Charlie said he’d love to meet you. I was thinking maybe you could come over next weekend. This weekend is no good—we’re going on a trip to the casino down in Connecticut on Saturday, and Sunday is Evelyn’s eightieth birthday party. I told you her kids are planning a big thing, catered and everything, right? I bought her this cute little vase. She loves dust-collectors. Don’t ask me why, but she does.”

  “That’s nice, Mom, and I’d like to meet Charlie, too. But next weekend is no good for me. Scott and I are going away.” She eyed Scott as she said this. He shot her a lethal look, then shook his head and resumed eating. “I really can’t talk,” she said again. “I’ll call you back later, okay?”

  “Okay. Do you think I did the right thing getting that vase for Evelyn? It’s pretty, but maybe she’s already got enough dust-collec
tors.”

  “I’ll call you back,” Meredith said firmly, then hung up. She moved back to the table, slumped in her chair and stared at Scott. “Do you really not want to go away with me?” she asked, unable to disguise the quiver in her voice. Suddenly she was not just worried about the state of her marriage. She was scared. Maybe he was having an affair with Caitlin. Or some other student. Or a whole bunch of them. Why else would he be so angry about this trip?

  “It’s not that I don’t want to go away with you,” he said, his tone thick with forced patience. “But you made this plan without even asking me. The start of the term is a crazy time. I’m teaching three classes and an independent study this semester, I’m working on the new book, I’m supposed to present a paper at the APSA conference, I’ve got a shitload of proposals to review for the governor, and you go and book a weekend getaway. You should have checked with me first.”

  “If I had, you would have said no.”

  His gaze met hers. She remembered the first night she’d met him, at that noisy, crowded frat party. She remembered the thumping music, the floor sticky with spilled beer, the throngs dancing and shrieking and drinking...and the tall, dark-haired boy who’d magically materialized in front of her and smiled. His eyes had riveted her then, and they riveted her now, even thought they were shimmering with anger.

  “I would have said no,” he agreed.

  So much for spontaneity. “Well, I’ve already paid for the cabin,” she informed him. “If you don’t want to go with me, I’ll take Skippy.” Or she’d pass the reservation along to her mother and Charlie. They could spend the weekend in a cozy, romantic cabin, holding hands. Or whatever.

  She dropped her gaze to her own plate, regarding the eclectic array of food and realizing that swallowing would be impossible when she had a lump of tears the size of a tennis ball lodged in her throat. Silently, she nudged her plate away, pushed back her chair and walked to the mudroom to fetch Skippy’s leash. Unaware of the tension simmering between her and Scott, Skippy bounded into the kitchen, panting in near ecstasy.

  Without a word, she clipped the leash onto his collar and left the house. She needed to walk. She needed to weep. And she needed to get away from Scott.

  Chapter Three

  HE DIDN’T GET HOME until after five. She’d worked only a half-day herself, come home, packed her bag—including the frothy lace teddy she’d bought to wear that night—and delivered Skippy, his leash, his food and water bowls and a ten-pound bag of kibble to her neighbor across the street. Then she’d paced, Googled the directions to Cindy’s inn in West Dennis and paced some more, waiting for Scott and wondering whether this excursion would save her marriage.

  At least he’d agreed to make the trip with her. Begrudgingly, resentfully, but she would not be going alone. “I’m bringing my laptop with me,” he’d warned. “I really don’t have time for this stupid trip. I’ve got too much work to do.”

  Fine. He could work all day if he wanted. At night, she’d don the teddy. Maybe he would finally notice that there was thirty-four pounds less of her than there had been two years ago. Maybe he’d take one look at her in that skimpy little garment and forget about all the work he had to do. Maybe he’d remember why he’d fallen in love with her.

  Maybe she’d remember why she’d fallen in love with him, too. Because ever since he’d reacted so negatively to this surprise trip, she’d been questioning whether her marriage was truly worth saving.

  She felt a frisson of something—excitement? anxiety? dread?—when she heard the rumble of his motorized garage door opening, signaling his arrival home. He shouted a quick hello as he sprinted through the kitchen, heading for the stairs. “Gotta pack,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Excitement, she decided. Late as he was, he was willing to rush through whatever he had to do to speed their departure. She followed him upstairs and watched as he tossed a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt and sneakers into his overnight bag, added his toiletries and zipped the bag shut. Fortunately, he could dress casually for work. She didn’t have to wait for him to change from a suit into more comfortable clothes. His khakis, oxford shirt and mocs were fine for traveling. “We’re eating dinner when we get there, right?” he asked as they hurried down the stairs.

  “The drive shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half,” she estimated. “There isn’t going to be much beach traffic this time of year. But if you want to bring along a snack—”

  “Nah.” He grabbed his lap-top bag from the kitchen table, where he’d tossed it before racing upstairs. “You’ll have to drive. I want to get a little work done on the way.”

  “No problem.” Bags stashed in the trunk, they settled into her car and she backed out of the garage, feeling hopeful about this trip for the first time since she’d suggested it.

  Her hope sprang a tiny leak when the first fat raindrops struck the windshield about a half hour into the drive. Scott hadn’t spoken much during that first half hour; other than blaming a tedious department meeting that afternoon for delaying him. “If you miss a department meeting, you wind up getting named to a committee or volunteered for some other obligation. No way could I skip it,” he said. “When it was finally over, I returned to my office to lock up and there was a student waiting for me there. She needed to discuss her midterm project.”

  Caitlin? Meredith wondered, though she didn’t dare to ask. To mention Caitlin’s name would be to admit she’d read Scott’s email. Besides, Caitlin was likely only one of many pretty undergraduate girls who really needed to see him and were willing to come whenever he wanted them to.

  Don’t think about it, Meredith cautioned herself.

  Less than a minute later, the glowering sky burst open, a deluge of rain slowing the traffic, and she couldn’t think of anything but inching along the clogged highway, which quickly wound up submerged beneath an inch of water. Raindrops pounded the car’s roof, producing a hectic drumbeat, and she switched her windshield wipers to high-speed.

  The clamor of the rain prompted Scott to glance up from his laptop screen. “Where did all this traffic come from?” he muttered.

  “The rain is slowing things down.”

  “Yeah, but all these cars? Why isn’t everyone driving to the mountains to look at the leaves?”

  Maybe they’d all had the same idea as Meredith. Maybe each car held a couple whose marriage was at risk of unraveling, and they were all cruising to Cape Cod to mend the fraying fabric of their love.

  “This is why I hate the Cape,” Scott continued, gesturing at the stream of red brake-lights glowing ahead of them. “The back-ups are always a nightmare.”

  “You don’t hate the Cape. You just hate the traffic,” Meredith argued. “And I’m driving. Relax.”

  He sighed. “At this rate, we’ll be eating dinner at midnight.”

  “We’ll survive.”

  He turned his attention back to his computer. The tapping of his fingers against the keys was drowned out by the percussion of the rain splashing against the car and bubbling into the puddles and rivulets washing the highway. The traffic crept. The sky darkened from dismal to apocalyptic. After a while, Meredith spotted the lights illuminating bridge that crossed the Cape Cod Canal, a looming silhouette of steel girders in the distance, black against the stormy purple sky. She opened her mouth to point out to Scott that they were making progress, but when she glanced at him he was scowling at his laptop screen, engrossed in his work. She remained silent.

  It took another forty-five minutes to travel from where she’d first seen the bridge until her car finally rolled onto it.

  More rain on the other side. Harder, wind-whipped rain. The weather forecast on last night’s local news had predicted a storm out in the ocean that might nip the eastern end of the cape. Evidently the meteorologist had tracked it wrong. It had engulfed the entire cape, and it was no mere nip. It was a huge, gluttonous chomp.

  The dashboard clock read 8:30.

  Due to the storm, the traff
ic continued to ooze along, slower than sludge. She sat unmoving for fifteen minutes while the vehicles in front of her eased around a small scrub pine that the wind had knocked over and deposited onto the road. Through it all, Scott’s attention remained on his laptop, his face barely illuminated by the glow from the monitor.

  She was tired. Driving in such wretched weather wore her out, and the rhythmic clicking of the windshield wipers was giving her a headache. But she wouldn’t complain. This getaway had been her idea, after all.

  Scott probably didn’t even think their marriage was in trouble. If he did, he probably didn’t care. But she cared, and that was why they were here right now, crawling along the flooded Mid-Cape Highway, heading toward their marriage’s salvation or doom.

  It was well past nine when she finally exited the highway. Rain continued to descend from the sky at a rate that made her think about building an ark and rounding up some animals. She hydroplaned a few times on the route south, slowed her speed, veered around fallen branches. Given the storm’s intensity, she assured herself, it would likely blow out to sea soon. Tomorrow would be a better day.

  On Route 28, she cleared her throat. “It’s nearly ten o’clock,” she told Scott. “Do you want me to stop at a McDonald’s?”

  He squinted at the dashboard clock and sighed. “It’s too late for a real meal,” he agreed.

  No familiar golden arches loomed ahead on the road. She passed a couple of seafood restaurants, several bars and a forlorn pizzeria, its parking lot empty. “Pizza,” Scott said.

  Meredith hadn’t eaten a slice of pizza since she’d decided to lose weight. She didn’t dare eat a slice of pizza now. She and Scott dashed through the rain to the door of the eatery and inside. The smell of hot oil and melted cheese did nothing to stir her appetite.

  “Who orders a take-out salad at a pizza place?” Scott asked fifteen minutes later, when they were back in the car, a box containing a few slices of pizza and a plastic tub of limp greens and cherry tomatoes perched on his lap.