Five months later, on June twelfth, Celia stood in Ruth’s bedroom in a green dress and wondered whether it was possible to be thirty weeks pregnant and still look as though she’d come on a date.
“Turn around,” Ruth said.
Celia turned. The dress fell softly from beneath her breasts, skimmed her stomach and ended at her calves. She had bought it herself, after trying on four sensible things that made her feel like furniture beneath a dust sheet.
“Well?”
“You look like you want him to take it off.”
“Ruth.”
“You asked.”
Celia laughed, then looked in the mirror again. Her chestnut bob had grown too long around her ears. She’d had it cut that afternoon, and the back of her neck felt exposed in a way she liked. Her freckles had come out in the warmer weather. There was nothing discreet about her pregnancy now.
“I want him to think I look nice,” she said.
“He has seen you in the rain wearing my jeans. He keeps calling. I think we’re past nice.”
Over five months she had learned to expect his name on her phone without knowing quite what to do with the pleasure it gave her. Adrian had come to the project when work allowed. They’d had coffee, or rather coffee and ginger tea, among other people. He’d called from airports; she’d once fallen asleep before replying and woken to find he’d sent a picture of an astonishingly ugly hotel carpet instead of asking why she hadn’t answered.
In February she’d mailed him a birthday card with a badly drawn boat inside. Forty-five, he’d told her when she’d asked. A perfectly good age to learn to sail. He had replied that buying a third book would be cheaper.
She’d learned how often he was away, how impatient he became with a decision repeated in three meetings, how he could lose all sense of time while explaining an idea. He’d learned she disliked being called sensible, liked lemon desserts and would take an unreasonable detour for a good view.
They had not kissed. They had not been alone for more than an hour. When he’d asked again about dinner, she had finally said yes.
Now he was downstairs.
Ruth glanced at her phone. “He’s talking to the buckets. You should rescue him.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“More than I expected.”
Adrian stood in the hall while Ruth moved a delivery crate out of his way. He wore dark trousers and a jacket over an open-necked shirt. Nothing about him looked effortless; there was a crease across his sleeve, and his hair had plainly resisted the attempt to smooth it.
When Celia reached the bottom step, he forgot what he’d been saying.
It was only a second. She could have missed it. She was glad she hadn’t.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello.”
Ruth picked up her crate. “I’ll leave you two to practice.”
Celia laughed, and the strain broke. Adrian took her coat when she handed it to him, then waited while she put it on. His fingers touched the collar briefly at the back of her neck.
“You look lovely.”
She turned toward him. “Thank you.”
No apology. No joke about the amount of dress required. She let herself watch his face when she accepted the compliment.
The restaurant was in Seattle, above the water, with an elevator that rose through a quiet lobby and opened on a room full of reflected light. Celia had known it would be expensive. She had spent an embarrassing ten minutes looking at the menu online and another ten pretending she hadn’t.
The scale of Adrian’s wealth was no longer a mystery. After the first surprise at the depot, she’d looked him up. A business profile described the company valuation, his share and the billionaire founder’s reluctance to discuss his private life. She had closed the article, opened it again, then gone downstairs to ask Ruth whether a person could feel ridiculous for having accepted soup.
Ruth had said yes, apparently.
Tonight the host greeted him and led them past the main dining room to a private room with pale walls, flowers on a side table and enormous windows. It was beautiful. It was also so quiet that Celia could hear the wheels of a serving trolley through the closed door.
“I thought you’d be more comfortable here,” Adrian said.
She set her bag down. Beyond the glass, an open terrace caught the evening breeze. People sat beneath heaters, talking, their napkins lifting at the edges. The harbor sounded faintly through a door someone had left ajar.
“It’s lovely,” she said.
He looked relieved. A server stepped forward to pull out her chair.
Celia stopped with her hand on the back of it. “Actually, could we sit outside?”
The server looked at Adrian.
“Of course,” Adrian said. “Is that possible?”
It was. There was a little rearrangement, a delay, an apology from someone who hadn’t made a mistake. Celia wanted to take back the request to save everyone the trouble.
Then they stepped onto the terrace and the harbor opened beneath them, white wakes crossing dark water, a gull suspended in the wind. She drew a long breath and knew she’d asked for the right thing.
Adrian held her chair while she sat. “I should have asked.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I made an educated guess.”
“You gave me the room where no one would see me.”
He looked up sharply.
She hadn’t meant it as an accusation. “I know you weren’t hiding me. But I’ve spent months trying not to be in anyone’s way. I want to sit where things are happening.”
He glanced back at the private room, then out at the water. “I wanted to impress you.”
The admission was so plain that she smiled.
“You have. There are boats.”
“Very expensive boats.”
“You should have said. I wasn’t appreciating them enough.”
His laugh came with relief. He sat across from her, and the server returned with menus as the sun broke through a bank of cloud.
They ordered slowly. Celia asked about a dish she’d never eaten, and Adrian listened without stepping in to translate her preferences. She chose roasted halibut with a sauce the server described so enticingly that she nearly changed her mind about the starter and ordered it twice. Adrian chose something else so they could try both.
“You don’t have to share,” he said when she looked at him.
“I’m just deciding whether you’re going to be sorry.”
“I usually order too much.”
“That sounds promising.”
The first plates arrived, beautiful enough to make her hesitate before disturbing them. There was crisp pastry, a soft savory filling and a sharp little dressing that made her close her eyes after the first bite.
When she opened them, Adrian was watching.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You look pleased with yourself.”
“I am.”
She wanted to laugh and look away and keep his gaze all at once. For so long meals out had been occasions to make Quentin’s company comfortable. Ask the right questions. Notice an empty glass. Never order something that would hold up the table.
Adrian moved his plate toward her. “Try this before I finish it.”
She did, and he stole a bite of hers while she considered the difference. It was an unimportant exchange. She liked how much room it took up.
He told her about a meeting where he’d spent forty minutes arguing for a decision he had made months earlier, because he’d forgotten to tell one of the people expected to carry it out.
“What did they say?”
“Something unflattering. Accurately.”
“Did you admit it?”
“Eventually. After wasting another ten minutes explaining how busy I’d been.”
“Was that persuasive?”
“Not even to me.”
She grinned. He had taken off his jacket, and the evening breeze stirred his shirt against his chest. She looked at the open collar, the small hollow at the base of his throat, and forgot the next question she’d intended to ask.
“Celia?”
“Sorry. I was looking at you.”
His expression changed. She felt a small wild satisfaction at having done that to him.
“I noticed.”
“You could pretend not to.”
“I could. I don’t want to.”
The food arrived before she could find an answer. She was grateful for it and annoyed by the interruption. They talked about ordinary things, a book he hadn’t finished, a movie she’d disliked so much she’d watched it twice to make sure. She told him about her mother teaching her and Ruth to make bread and discovering they’d used salt instead of sugar. He told her his father’s idea of cooking was to put three things on the grill and insist the burnt one was exactly as intended.
“Do you miss him every day?” she asked.
Adrian looked toward the water. “Some days I think of something to tell him. That’s worse than the days I expect.”
She nodded. “I still think I should call Mom when I find something on sale. She wasn’t even especially interested in bargains.”
He smiled faintly. “Did she knit?”
“Yes. Badly, at first. Better later. Why?”
“You mentioned a cardigan once. In a message.”
She remembered telling him she’d found baby things among the boxes. Not the whole story, just a line on an evening she’d missed her mother badly.
“Red wool. Wooden fox buttons. She made it when I was tiny.”
“Have you kept it?”
“Of course.” She smiled at the question. “It’s waiting in the apartment things. Along with far too many books for someone who won’t be able to read.”
“You can read them.”
“That’s my excuse.”
The conversation quieted without becoming sad. She liked that he could hear about her mother and still, a little later, make her laugh at his own very poor description of sailing terms.
When dessert came, he asked if she wanted another spoon.
“I ordered lemon because you said you didn’t,” she reminded him.
“I may have been hasty.”
She gave him a taste. He closed his eyes in a shameless imitation of her earlier expression, and she laughed so loudly a woman at the next table smiled.
After dinner they walked a short way along the waterfront. Celia had brought flat shoes in her bag, and Adrian waited while she changed them on a bench, holding the impractical pair without comment.
“I’m glad you didn’t offer to carry me,” she said.
“I was going to offer a car. Two options, actually. One close and one with a better turning circle.”
“How romantic.”
“I know. I’m improving.”
She rose, and he gave her his hand when she reached for it. For a moment he didn’t let go. Neither did she.
His palm was dry and warm. She became very aware of the space between them, the water behind him, the evening turning cool on her bare neck. She had thought about his mouth often enough in private to be embarrassed by how ordinary it looked now, and how much she wanted it.
He glanced down at their joined hands, then released hers.
“We should get you home before it’s too late.”
Disappointment came so sharply that she almost laughed at herself. She was thirty-seven, pregnant, and standing on a public walkway hoping a man would kiss her. Surely she ought to have acquired more dignity by now.
“I’m not tired yet.”
“All right.”
They walked farther. A street musician was packing a saxophone into its case. Celia paused to drop money in the open case, then lingered while the man played a few last notes for a child who didn’t want to leave.
“Do you dance?” she asked Adrian.
“Not often.”
“That wasn’t no.”
“It was a warning.”
She smiled. “I’d like to go dancing.”
He looked at her, then briefly toward her stomach. She felt the glance, although he looked away quickly.
“Somewhere I can sit down,” she said. “I didn’t mean on a table.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“What were you thinking?”
He stopped beside the railing. “That I don’t know whether you’re here because you want to be or because I’ve been useful and you feel you ought to give me something.”
It surprised her enough to make her cross. “You think I’d do that?”
“I think you worry about hurting people’s feelings.”
“I do. But I didn’t spend money on this dress to protect yours.”
He looked at the dress, then at her face. A slow smile began before he could suppress it.
“I’m glad.”
“And I wanted to sit on the terrace. And I wanted your dessert, if you’d ordered something better.”
“You got the better dessert.”
“I know.” She stepped closer. “I’d like you to take me dancing. I might need to rest. I might need to leave early. I’m still asking.”
“Then yes.”
His hand touched the outside of her arm, a brief stroke through the soft fabric. She felt it after he’d moved away.
On the drive home she watched the city lights thin into the darker road toward Saltmere. They spoke less. Once she caught him looking at her when the car stopped, and this time she didn’t pretend to be interested in the view.
At Ruth’s door he gave her the shoes and stood close enough that she could smell his soap beneath the evening air.
“Thank you for asking me again,” she said.
“Thank you for saying yes.”
She could have kissed him. She nearly did. Then Ruth’s hall light came on, and they both laughed at the same time, caught in a hesitation neither of them could disguise.
“Dancing,” Celia reminded him.
“I’ll find somewhere.”
She went inside smiling, holding her shoes against her chest. Ruth looked up from the couch and took one look at her face.
“Well,” she said.
Celia sat down beside her, still in the green dress. “I had a lovely time.”
She said it again, because there was no reason not to.