Bright, Precious Days

26

“I’M DESPERATE TO SEE YOU,” Luke said.

Dying to see you was a cliché, but desperate gave her pause. That sounded sincere. She must be desperate herself to be taking Luke’s call in the bedroom, with Russell and the kids only a few yards away, but it was Valentine’s Day, after all. Luke was visiting his daughter up at Vassar; he was calling to tell Corrine he wanted to take her away the following weekend.

“Can you at least tell me our destination? I can’t just run off without saying where I’m going.”

“Let’s say winter wonderland. Pack some warm clothes. And your birthday suit.”

“What are you — twelve years old? I mean, who even says ‘birthday suit’?”

“Deeply smitten middle-aged men, apparently.”

“I can’t just disappear for a whole weekend.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have a family.” Even as she said it, she was thinking more about logistics than about morality, wondering if she could pull it off.

After they hung up, she called Casey, who had a house in Connecticut, where, theoretically, they might spend a girls’ weekend.

“I can’t believe you lecture me about Washington and now you want me to be your alibi for a dirty weekend with Luke.”

“First off, I didn’t lecture you. I just told you I didn’t want to get in the middle of it.”

“Well, if you get Washington to call me, I’ll cover for you.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“Please, Corrine. You, of all people, should know how it feels.”

Corrine hated having her situation conflated with Casey’s. But she did need her help.

That night they had dinner at Bouley, their traditional destination on February 14, only a few short blocks from the apartment, although their transit was complicated by the residual ice and snow of Tuesday’s storm.

After they’d settled into their usual table, the sommelier handed Russell the wine list while she examined the menu, looking for greenery and simplicity amid the elaborate compositions, oblivious to the inevitable and incessant wine talk, which to her was like the chatter of starlings. She was stirred from her reverie when Russell said, “I had lunch with Washington.”

“How is he?”

“Not great. But I’m assuming you already know that.”

“Well, yes, I guess so.”

“So you knew about this thing he was having with Casey?”

“At some point, yes, she confided in me.”

“I can’t believe you never told me about this.”

“It was in strictest confidence.”

“I’m your husband. We’re not supposed to have secrets.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t have any secrets from me?”

“I can’t think of any.”

“I doubt that.”

“And this involves my best friend.”

“All the more reason not to tell you. I’m sorry, but I was in a terrible position.”

“I felt like an idiot. He just assumed I knew.”

“Well why didn’t he tell you if he’s your best friend? You speak to him practically every day. What the hell do you two talk about, anyway? Sports? Recipes? Indie rock bands? This is what never ceases to amaze me about men, this masculine code forbidding any discussion of emotions, or anything that’s actually important.”

She’d delivered some variation of this speech a hundred times, but at this point she could see it was effective.

“We wait until it’s important,” Russell said, though his indignation seemed largely rhetorical at this point — the argument driven more by inertia than conviction. “And maybe he assumed that I’d be judgmental, that I wouldn’t approve.”

“So how is he?”

“He’s chastened.”

“He should be.”

“He’s staying at the Mercer while she mulls things over. You know, I honestly thought he was over this kind of shit. I mean, there comes a time where you settle into the life you’ve chosen and accept its boundaries and limitations.”

As sensible as this sounded, it also seemed sad and defeatist — as if long-term monogamy was ultimately a function of exhaustion.

“I take it Tom doesn’t know,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Poor bastard,” he said. Then, after a moment of silence: “I’m famished. Let’s order.”

—

Russell ordered a marc after dinner and spread his arms out across the top of the booth in a posture of intoxicated satiation. He was just slightly slurring his words. “So how’s Casey holding up?” he asked, returning to the earlier subject.

“She’s pretty freaked-out,” Corrine said. “Actually, I was thinking about going with her up to Litchfield next weekend, if it’s okay with you.” She hadn’t known she was going to say this until the opportunity had presented itself. It was almost scary how accustomed one could become to deception.

“What am I going to do with the kids all weekend? I’ve got a lot of work.”

She’d hoped this wasn’t going to be hard; at the same time she could feel a kind of imminent relief in the prospect of Russell’s resistance, a sense of the decision being taken out of her hands, of being saved from herself.

“Well, I suspect Washington will have the kids for at least one day that weekend and he probably needs to entertain them somehow. You two could team up.”

He swirled his glass, examining the amber liquid before taking a swig. “Okay, I guess,” he said. He was seldom happier than when savoring a digestif after a good meal.

“How goes the Kohout book?” she asked, suddenly feeling generous, trying to change the subject before he changed his mind, to be curious and open-minded about a matter over which they’d previously clashed.

“It’s good, so far. Very compelling. I’m still waiting for the final pages.”

“Aren’t you publishing in, what, three months?”

“God and Phillip willing.”

“You sound worried.”

“There’s a lot riding on this. A hell of a lot.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “It’s going to be fine,” she said, hoping this was true. “You’ll make it work.”

—

She felt tense and anxious after they put the kids down, wondering about Russell’s intentions and her own desires. Sex was practically mandatory on Valentine’s night; even when they’d been in a winter drought, they’d almost always rallied for the occasion. It had been many long weeks since they’d consummated a sloppy coupling on New Year’s Eve, and while she didn’t feel like initiating proceedings tonight, she was open to suggestion, to a reinvigoration of their dormant romance. She told herself she was willing to give him a chance to change her mind about going off with Luke next weekend. When, after reading a manuscript for half an hour and turning out the light, he kissed her chastely on the cheek and said good night, he unwittingly sealed his fate.

—

As the date of her rendezvous approached, Corrine grew increasingly concerned about the weather; a snowstorm was forecast to move in the night before her departure. “Don’t worry,” Luke said. “A little snow won’t hurt us. Even if commercial flights are canceled, we’ll be able to take off from Teterboro.”

“What if I can’t get there?”

“I’ll send Brendan. He’s an ex-cop and he’s got a Suburban that can climb Everest.”

A few days later, after taking the kids to school, she returned to the loft to wake Russell and finish packing. Having slept badly, he was in a lousy mood, cranky about everything in the newspaper, including Obama’s surging prospects against Hillary. “I mean, what do we really know about this guy?”

“We know he opposes this disastrous war, which Hillary voted for.”

“Based on faulty intelligence,” Russell said.

“We all operate from faulty intelligence,” Corrine said, not entirely certain what she meant at first, but suddenly convinced it was a good description of the human condition.

“I still don’t understand why you’re driving into a snowstorm.”

“Casey’s driver says we’ll be fine. He’s an ex-cop.” This was actually true; the Reynes, like many of their peers, including Luke, employed retired cops as chauffeurs, in no small part to avail themselves of the privileges and perks those gentlemen enjoyed. But now it occurred to her that Russell might be tempted to call Casey or Tom to check on her. In a panic, she called Casey from the bedroom. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Tom’s in Dubai, and he doesn’t know or particularly care where I am. As for Russell calling me, if it happens, I’ll dodge the call and let you know he’s looking for you.”

“I’m suddenly imagining every way I could get caught. Not to mention I’m flying off in a blizzard.”

“Live dangerously,” Casey said. “If I sit next to one more dinner partner who asks me where my kids go to school, like I did last night, I’m going to jump out the window.”

Corrine called Luke and asked, “Are we really doing this?”

“Absolutely. I just talked to the pilot. He says we’re good to go. And Brendan’s waiting for you downstairs.”

Russell grudgingly accepted a kiss on the cheek. “I think you’re crazy.”

“I’m doing it for Casey,” she said. Could she really be someone who lied this easily? “She’s going through a rough time.”

Luke’s driver was indeed waiting on the street, brushing the snow from the hood of his Suburban.

“Do you really think we’ll be okay getting to Teterboro?” she asked.

“No problemo. You just leave that to me, miss,” he said, closing the door behind her.

Brendan might have been fearless, but other drivers were creeping and sliding and fishtailing in the snow, slowing their progress toward the tunnel. When they finally reached the Jersey side, they got caught in a long line of cars backed up behind a jackknifed tractor-trailer. By the time they arrived at Teterboro, the snow was falling with a vengeance — the wipers snapping back and forth like twin swords fighting off the barrage — and she couldn’t see how they could take off, her disappointment tempered by relief. Maybe it was for the best after all. Maybe it was a sign.

At the entrance, the driver intoned the magic tail number into the intercom and the gate rose slowly to admit them. She’d been here a couple of times with Casey and Tom, but the idea of flying on a private jet still seemed unreal to her. She remembered some stupid joke of Tom’s, to the effect that if you had a tail number, you’d never be lacking for tail. At any rate, she wasn’t likely to run into anyone she knew out here.

Luke was waiting inside the terminal, looking winter weekend — ready in a navy turtleneck and a leonine shearling coat. As they kissed, he nearly squeezed the breath out of her, and she felt her scruples thawing.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Surely we’re not actually going to fly?”

“Nothing to worry about. Just a few inches of snow.”

At that point a pilot walked over, introduced himself and asked if they were ready.

“Do you really think it’s safe?” Corrine said.

“We’re fine,” he said, “but I think we’d better get moving.” It seemed to her that he sounded less confident than Luke.

“Let’s do it,” Luke said, taking her hand.

They followed the pilot out across the snowy tarmac to the plane, the luggage following along behind on a cart.

The interior smelled of new leather and aerosol. The cabin was just tall enough for her to stand in the narrow aisle, though Luke had to stoop. She settled into a beige leather seat.

“Was there ever a point,” she asked, “at which you woke up and said, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe how much money I have’? Or is it just a gradual acclimatization? Do you just get used to it?”

“Both,” he said. “You do get used to it, but sometimes, some days, you look around and can’t believe this is how you’re living. Today, right now, would qualify as one of those moments.”

Instead of taking the compliment, she brooded on the implications. “Do you think the pleasure one takes in material well-being is like passion, that it eventually fades?”

“Who says passion has to fade?”

Before she could point out the inevitability of its fading, the pilot came back to instruct her on the safety features of the jet.

“Hope you don’t mind — I’m going to be flying the plane,” Luke said after the briefing. “But it’s a short flight, and we’ve got a great copilot.”

This revelation only served to reawaken her fears. “Luke, are you sure we’re not being reckless? Besides, I don’t even know where we’re going.”

“I wouldn’t risk your safety for the world. And you’ll like our destination.” He kissed her and followed the copilot to the cockpit.

It was strange, Corrine thought as they lifted off, being the only passenger on a plane. She wasn’t sure she was the kind of person who could learn to be comfortable with wealth. Or was it just that she’d never had the chance to? She’d spent most of her life on the Art and Love team.

—

Less than an hour later they descended through the clouds over a landscape of downy white hills, the serenity of the view providing a stark contrast to the violent bucking of the plane as they approached a small New England town, Corrine clutching the armrests, wondering if this might, in fact, be the end, the final reckoning for her dishonesty and disloyalty, for sins past and those not yet committed. PRIVATE JET CRASH: LOVERS KILLED EN ROUTE TO TRYST.

The bumpy touchdown came as a blessed relief.

“Welcome to Vermont,” Luke said, emerging from the cockpit.

“I thought we were going to die.”

“What, that little patch of turbulence?”

“Were you always this—”

“Unflappable?”

“I was going to say reckless. Or maybe heedless. I was going to say ‘Were you always such a reckless asshole?’ ” Even as she said this, she remembered that he’d run toward the towers that day while others were running away.

“If I were risk-averse, I’m sure my life would be very different,” he said with evident relish.

—

An SUV was waiting for them just beyond the ramp. Luke signed for it, shook hands with the pilot and tipped the man who loaded their bags into the back.

“Are you ever going to tell me exactly where the hell we’re going?” she said as they drove out through the gate.

“Wouldn’t you rather be surprised?”

“I guess I’m not really an adventurer at heart. I like to know what’s coming around the corner.”

“Well, I’m grateful that you were adventurous enough to come along with me.”

“It’s totally out of character, I assure you.”

“Good.”

“Can you at least tell me what that big obelisk was that I saw while I was praying for my life to be spared? Or was that a hallucination?”

“That was a monument built to commemorate the Battle of Bennington during the Revolutionary War.”

“I got into Bennington,” she said, “but I decided it was a little too far-out for me.”

“I dated a Bennington girl once,” Luke said. “She was a real wildcat.”

“I want to hear about all the other girls in your life.”

“It’s not like this huge list.”

“Then it’ll be easy for you to tell me.”

“I don’t pretend to be an expert, but in my experience when women say they want to hear about their romantic predecessors, they don’t really mean it.”

“I’m not like those other bitches,” she said.

“Indeed you’re not.”

—

After driving south through the valley for ten minutes, they got off the highway and followed a road up into the hills, turning into a long driveway that culminated in a rambling white farmhouse with green shutters that crowned a snowy hilltop. A decrepit red gambrel-roofed barn came into view behind the house as they shimmied up the driveway, the tires spinning and spitting snow.

“I can only assume you have a golden retriever waiting to complete the picture.”

“I don’t even know if you’re a dog person.”

“I’m a ferret person, actually. Though I grew up with terriers.”

“I didn’t know there were ferret people.”

“We like to root around, uncovering things and bringing them to light.”

He pulled up in front of the house and said, “Shall I carry you over the threshold?”

“That might be premature. Where are we, anyway?”

“Pownal, Vermont. A friend’s house.”

“It looks as if we’ll have plenty of privacy.”

The interior had a shambolic, layered quality that suggested decades of slow accretion, faded and frayed carpets, surfaces covered with books and magazines and journals, shelves sagging with the weight of more books, treasures and oddities, split logs and newspapers stacked beside the brick fireplace. Off the living room was a small overstuffed library. The master bedroom had a fireplace, wallpaper in a trellis and vine pattern, a telescope and a four-poster bed that almost touched the low, sagging ceiling.

“I love this place,” Corrine said.

“It belongs to my favorite history professor. I’ve been visiting for years. He’s in an assisted-living facility in Williamstown now, about ten miles down the road.”

“I forgot you went to Williams.”

“But I remember your telling me about a weekend you spent there your sophomore year.”

“God, yes. Tod Baker, homecoming weekend, 1977. Did I really tell you about that?”

“You did.”

“And you thought it would be romantic for me to revisit the scene of my humiliation?”

He suddenly looked worried. “As I recall, it sounded idyllic.”

“Well, yes, except for the part where I puked in his lap.”

“You neglected to mention that detail.”

“But otherwise, yes, idyllic.”

—

Luke had packed two coolers of food, and that night, while she sneaked off to the library to call home, he laid out a spread of caviar and foie gras and cheese, along with an array of premade salads. “I don’t actually cook,” he said when she came into the kitchen and found this feast laid out on the table.

“Thank God for that,” she said, kissing him.

Sex with Luke had been thrilling from the beginning, but she’d never felt so adventurous or voracious as she did over the next forty-eight hours. Her ardor was informed by a sense of transience, an awareness not only of the hours ticking away on the hilltop but of the gradually unwinding spring of her own vitality. She would probably never feel this kind of desire again; with Russell she had far too much history to ever again experience the thrill of discovery. She had a fervent desire to do everything with Luke, to have a store of memories to draw on in the cold nights to come.

That night, she lay back on the bed as he started to play with her, and gently guided his hand. She was amazed how quickly she came under the gentle thrum of his finger. As the tremors subsided, she released her grip on his forearm and moved her hand down his body. Finding him thoroughly hard, she was seized with a sudden inspiration. “I want you to put it in my ass.”

This was not a sentence she’d ever uttered before, and she was only slightly less surprised than he was, although he didn’t object or try to debate the point. She reached over to the bedside table for the bottle of Kiehl’s body lotion.

She tried to imagine it from his point of view as he slowly advanced, the deferral of gratification as he paused and gently pressed again, pausing at her sudden intakes of breath.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said.

It must have been difficult for him to go so slowly when his instinct was to thrust ahead. There was a last spasm of painful resistance and then suddenly she yielded and he was inside of her and the pain metamorphosed into something that increasingly resembled pleasure. She hadn’t even been sure that she would enjoy this, her initial desire more symbolic than physical. It had been years, a few times long ago when she and Russell were new, but she wanted to do this with him, to have this intimacy, and now she felt more connected to him than ever and wanted to always remember this feeling.

“I want to remember what you smell like,” she said, lying on his chest afterward.

“I’m right here,” he said. “No remembering required.”

But perversely, she felt the night and the weekend slipping away. She couldn’t help it — she was already thinking ahead to missing him later.

That morning, she woke to the smell of bacon frying, the bed beside her empty. Please God — not another man who wants to feed me breakfast, she thought, although on second thought she realized she was actually hungry. She put on the silk robe she’d packed, peed, brushed her teeth and hair, dabbed on some lip gloss. Seeing his Dopp kit open on the sink, she couldn’t resist glancing at its contents, particularly the prescription bottles: Lipitor, Ambien, Cialis and Adderall. She couldn’t help being slightly disappointed about the Cialis, preferring to imagine that his sexual stamina was a tribute to her, but the Adderall was more surprising. Half the kids in Manhattan were taking it for attention deficit disorder, real or alleged, the other half for weight loss or the sheer speedy buzz of it. Was he taking it to treat himself or to fuel himself? Did it matter? ADD would certainly explain some of his tics, his sometimes manic demeanor.

When she went downstairs to the kitchen, he put down his spatula, embraced and kissed her, his day-old beard rasping her face, then returned to his cooking, humming what sounded like “Rehab.” Was it just her imagination, her new knowledge, or was he way too alert and energetic at this early hour? “I thought you didn’t cook?”

“Only breakfast.”

“Do we have plans today?” she asked, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

“We do. After breakfast we’re getting in the car.”

“To go where?”

“That’s a surprise.”

After polishing off a poached egg on toast, Corrine went upstairs to dress.

They drove down Route 7 to Williamstown, a place she hadn’t laid eyes on in three decades, the campus an attractive architectural mélange of Federal, Gothic, Romanesque and various flavors of modernism.

“Did you love it?” she asked as they turned up the driveway of what appeared to be a white marble Doric temple.

“Mostly,” he said. “Do you know where we are?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

“The Clark Art Institute. I’ve arranged for a private tour.”

A young man was waiting at the main entrance, and he led them inside. She remembered now — she’d spent a hungover morning here, hiding from her date among the Renoirs and Monets. The guide was explaining that the Clarks had been wealthy New York collectors who, fearing that nuclear apocalypse might wipe out Manhattan, had built this museum in the Berkshires to house their collection, thereby greatly disappointing the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Hard to believe that they could have accumulated a collection of this magnitude in a single generation,” Luke said.

“You sound jealous,” Corrine said.

He shrugged.

“Is there anything in particular you’d like to see?” their guide asked.

“Could you show us Interior at Arcachon?” Luke said.

“Oh, certainly. That’s one of my favorites.”

Luke looked at Corrine expectantly.

“The Manet,” she said after a pause, remembering.

“You told me it was your favorite painting,” he said, looking disappointed, as they followed their guide across the marble corridor.

“I can’t believe you remembered that.” More to the point, she couldn’t believe she’d almost forgotten it. She had said that, and it was true, or at least it probably was true when she told him that it was, though she’d forgotten in the interim. Had it really been her favorite painting in the long years between first viewing it as a college student and talking to Luke about art in the days after 9/11? It seemed more likely that the turmoil of that time had, like an earthquake or a volcanic eruption, thrust up buried memories and emotions, that this particular memory had been reawakened in the aftermath. What was most significant to her, at this moment, was the fact that Luke had remembered. This whole trip, she saw, had been organized around the impulse to reunite her with her putative favorite painting.

And here it was: a small gray-brown canvas, an intimate interior, a young man smoking a cigarette while an older woman across the table, his mother, looks up from her writing to take in the view of the sea through the open French windows. At the time, decades ago, she’d been hard-pressed to understand why the painting made such an impression on her, having none of the heroic eroticism of his Olympia, or the tragic grandeur of The Execution of Emperor Maximilian. But the sense of calm — and restfulness — was mesmerizing; the gray of the walls and the sea was the color of afternoon, of contemplation.

“I know it’s just a small domestic scene,” she said, feeling obliged to explain her esteem for the painting. “But back then it made me incredibly wistful and nostalgic, I think because my own family was in such a state of perpetual conflict.”

“Manet had just returned from the Franco-Prussian War,” the guide said, “and you can feel how deeply he relished this peaceful family vignette. The ease and serenity are palpable.”

“Why don’t you meet us in about ten minutes in front of the Piero della Francesca,” Luke told him.

“I can’t get over your remembering this,” Corrine said as the young man slunk off. “Or that you brought me here. It’s very…I’m impressed. And touched.” She kissed his stubbly cheek.

“It is a lovely Manet,” he said.

“Had you noticed it before? You were probably disappointed when I told you that this little canvas was my favorite painting.”

“I don’t remember noticing it when I was at Williams, but I came up here after you told me that to see it.”

They contemplated it together until he said, “Of course, my favorite Manet would have to be Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe.”

“But of course. Heroic scale, clothed men, nude women — what’s not for an alpha male to love?”

He chose to ignore her taunt. “When I was growing up in Tennessee, I had these godparents, not actual godparents but kind of spiritual godparents, the Cheathams. They were friends of my parents and I used to fantasize that they were my real parents. They were very sophisticated and collected modern art, this in a place where everyone hung hunting prints and family portraits. Joleen Cheatham took me to museums and taught me about art. They had this drawing or maybe a print, a late Picasso called Le Déjeuner sur L’Herbe, which entranced me. I didn’t know at the time it was a riff on Manet’s painting, but I was fascinated by the composition, two nude women among clothed men. I also had a serious crush on Joleen — we’re talking erotic dreams and fantasies, and it all got mixed up together, my feelings for Joleen and art and my early interest in sex. Then later, as a student, when I saw Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, it was like stumbling on the key to the tortured mysteries of my adolescent sexual development.”

“You don’t seem all that tortured to me,” she said.

“I sublimate like hell.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “I owe this Joleen a debt of gratitude.”

—

They strolled through the galleries, browsing, grazing on the treasures — the gemlike Piero, the seascapes by Turner and Homer. Afterward he showed her scenes of former triumphs and failures — the freshman dorm on the quad, where he’d lost his virginity; the stately Federalist classroom building, where he’d defended his thesis on income distribution; the Gothic chapel, where he’d married Sasha. He left her at the library while he went to visit his old professor at the nursing home, and afterward he took her to lunch at a restaurant on a hillside south of town.

Touched by the extravagant gesture of the private tour and the fact that he’d remembered her story about the Manet, she tried to explain to him the insecurity she’d felt at the time, the tension and psychic violence, the shouting matches and ruined holidays. She was in the middle of a story about a Thanksgiving shoving match when he opened his menu and began to peruse it.

“Are you reading the menu?”

He lowered it and looked up, startled by her tone.

“I was just—”

“I was in the middle of telling you about the traumatic events of my childhood and you start reading the goddamn menu?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Was it that boring?”

“No, I promise, I really was listening.”

“Go ahead. Focus on the menu. I wouldn’t want to distract you from planning your meal.”

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I just have difficulty focusing.”

“Is that why you take Adderall?”

“Well, yes, actually.”

“I just happened to see it in your Dopp kit.”

“It must be nice to have X-ray vision.”

“All right, I’m sorry, I looked.”

“No, you’re right. It’s a problem. I’m easily distracted. Sometimes, I have the attention span of a gnat. I’m surprised it took you this long to complain.” He reached over and put his hand on hers. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

—

Snow was falling again as they drove back up the valley to the house.

Their desire and their attempts to sate it reached a kind of crescendo pitch that night; they woke in the middle of the night to try it again, and then once more just before dawn. They rose afterward to watch the sky turn silver and pink across the meadow, which had a fresh layer of snow. After breakfast they strapped on cross-country skis and explored the countryside for an hour, briefly staving off the regret of imminent departure, though Corrine became increasingly melancholy as the sun rose higher in the sky, wondering if this might be the last time she would be alone with Luke like this, realizing that her real life lay elsewhere.

“I hate Sundays,” Luke said as he helped her unbuckle her bindings, as if reading her thoughts.

“Me, too,” she said, brushing the snow from her jeans as he unlaced his boots.

“Why don’t we stay an extra day?”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why don’t we just stay, period?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean let’s be together,” he said, stepping out of his jeans and dumping them in the foyer.

“That’s crazy.”

“Why? What’s crazy is that I let you get away once, and I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”

“I love that you feel that way, but trust me, it will pass.”

“It’s been six years and the feeling hasn’t passed yet.”

“That’s because you didn’t have me. If you had, you would have gotten sick of me years ago.” And yet, even though she believed this, she found herself marveling that he actually wanted her still.

“You know, I’m used to getting what I want,” he said.

“Does that arrogant rich-guy line work on other girls?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I forget you’re not like anyone else.”

“That might work,” she said, stepping out of her jeans.

—

They landed smoothly at Teterboro, Luke emerging from the cockpit after the plane braked to a stop. As they walked across the tarmac to the terminal, she took his hand and held it. Inside, she was trying to steel herself for their parting, when they were accosted by Kip Taylor, sitting in the waiting area, who rose to greet them. “Corrine, Luke, what a…”

He seemed unable to finish the sentence, his surprise spawning confusion.

“Kip, I’ve been meaning to call you,” Luke said. “Got a company you might be interested in.”

Kip nodded skeptically. Corrine, too, was at a loss for words.

Luke said, “Headed someplace glamorous, I hope?”

“A little bonefishing down in the islands,” Kip said.

“Russell still talks about that trip with you last winter,” Corrine said, her voice sounding off-key, even slightly hysterical.

Before she could cobble together some plausible explanation, Kip said, “Give him my best,” then turned away and walked over to the counter, leaving her to wonder if it was only her own guilt that made this sound so much like a reproach.

“Oh my God,” she said as they walked to the front door. “What must he be thinking?”

“He’s going to think what he’s going to think,” Luke said tautologically. “But he has no reason to say anything.”

Even if this were true, she felt the weekend had been tarnished, if not ruined, with this abrupt reminder of her obligations and her place in an intricate web of social and familial and even commercial relations. Whatever had made her think she could just run away?