“Really?”
“Yes, really. I’ve been thinking about you constantly, and I think I’ve just about come to the conclusion that I’ve been waiting all my life for someone like you to appear. I walked in that gallery and there you were, just standing there glowing with goodness.”
What?
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Don’t you believe in love at first sight?”
“Well, I believe in love but I’m a little less sure about first sight.” I felt my face burning with surprise. Did he really think he was in love with me?
“Are you going to tell me you don’t feel the electricity between us?”
What was he saying? Did I feel it? Excuse me for pointing this out, but what I felt was like an ongoing explosion of nuclear energy. Yes, I felt it. Suddenly, our smirking waiter was standing next to Porter’s shoulder, ready to take our order. My jaw was still dropped.
“Um, I think . . .” I nodded in the waiter’s direction.
“Oh!” Porter said. “I didn’t see you there. Uh, I think I need a few minutes.”
“We have a few specials tonight. I’d like to tell them to you now, sir.”
The captain or the waiter or whatever he called himself went into a food litany that included preparation. I didn’t hear a word he said. All I could think about was Porter and how gorgeous he was and I was visualizing walking down the aisle in a gorgeous bridal gown with miles and miles of tulle and him standing at the end of the aisle, waiting for me . . . a cathedral . . .
“Ashley? Are you okay?”
“What? Oh yes! I’m fine.”
“Do you know what you’d like to have for dinner? Would you like to share the porterhouse?”
“They named a steak after you? Gosh, that is so nice!”
“No, sweetie, it’s a big steak for two people.”
“Oh, well, sure that sounds great,” I said and felt like an idiot.
“How do you like your meat prepared?” the waiter said.
“However the chef likes to serve it,” he said.
“Very good,” he said and made a note. “And would you care for appetizers?”
Porter ordered something for both of us and I couldn’t even tell you what it was. I ate whatever was placed in front of me. It was only the most delicious food in the world, that’s all. What really mattered was that Porter felt the same way about me as I did about him and I have to say, I was unprepared for this. Completely unprepared. I know we had dinner because plates kept coming and going. The last one had an unmistakable residue of chocolate.
“Would you like to have coffee, Ashley?”
“If you’re having coffee, I will.”
We had coffee, Porter paid the bill, and we left. We drove across the Cooper River and into Mount Pleasant, heading toward Sullivans Island.
“What a wonderful dinner,” I said. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You know what I hate?”
“No! Tell me!” Had I done something wrong?
“I hate that this night is coming to an end.”
“Oh! Well, me too! I thought . . . well, never mind. I wish it could go on too.”
“Unfortunately, I have to drive back to Columbia tonight. I have committee meetings starting at ten in the morning.”
“Gosh, that’s awful.”
“Yes. It’s a little rough. I should’ve booked a hotel room. I just didn’t think it through.”
“Well, Porter, I’d offer you the sofa, but my roommate would have a heart attack.”
“Oh. No, no!” He started to laugh. “I’ll bet she would! She’s that redhead, right?”
“Yes, Mary Beth Smythe. From Teeny Town, Tennessee. We went to the College of Charleston together. She’s my dearest friend. Like a sister.”
“Nice. Wait! You never told me about your career and all. All we did was talk about me all night. So tell me about what you do, what’s your plan?”
“Well, I’m a painter and I’d like to make my living as a painter. But it’s awfully hard to do that when you live here and besides, I need a larger body of work. Then maybe I can get a show somewhere.” I didn’t tell him that not so long ago I’d thought of painting him as a wolf. Why spoil the moment?
“So here I thought you were happily working in fine arts management when you’re an artist yourself! I should’ve known! Can you show me something you’ve painted?”
We pulled into my yard, and he stopped the car next to the cottage. Mary Beth’s car was there next to mine.
“Sure! That’s my studio.”
I pointed to my pitiful hovel and tried to remember if I’d left it unlocked. I thought I had.
“Wow! She has her own studio! Impressive.”
“Well, painting’s messy and smelly so it’s a good idea to have a place outside of the house.”
He just sat there in the driver’s seat and stared at me.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing,” he said. “Don’t move and I’ll be right there.”
He hurried around to my side of the car and opened my door.
“Mademoiselle?” he said and offered his hand to help me out.
He was a little bit short and I was a little too tall so in heels, I was actually a shade taller than him. I wondered if that bothered him at all. I was about to find out. As soon as I stood up he hurried to the steps of the cottage and stood on the first one. Yep, he had to be taller. Oh, so what, I told myself.
“You have to let me pass so I can turn on the lights.”
“Come here,” he said.
“What?” I said and stood in front of him.
He took my face into his hands and said, “Ashley Waters? I am going to kiss you right here in the moonlight.”
And he did, and oh my goodness, this was sure not his first kiss. No, ma’am. I’m not quite sure how to describe the effect of it without sounding completely inexperienced but it sort of left me breathless. And weak. And I felt an unfamiliar but thunderous flutter deep inside of me, somewhere below my stomach and above, well, you know where I mean. I hope.
“You are so beautiful. You have no idea how beautiful I think you are.”
Now I was officially having a near-death experience.
“Porter?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed like that before. Can we do that again?”
He kissed me again and I promise you I thought I was going to faint dead on the ground.
“I’d better leave soon.”
“Yes. I can show you my etchings any time.”
So we just stood there for I don’t know how long, an eternity, just staring at each other. Maybe it was a minute or more. My mind began to race. When would I see him again? Would I see him at all? What was the appropriate amount of time to wait before I, well, you know, did the obvious deed? Were the rules different with senators? This required thought.
“Ashley? What are you doing this weekend? Do you want to come to Columbia? There’s a dinner I have to go to for the SCDOT.”
“Where would I stay?”
“With me? In my apartment?”
“No way.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m not like that, Porter. Sometimes I wish I was but I’m not. Find a nice lady to chaperone me and I’ll come. Otherwise, I’ll see you the next time you’re in Charleston.”
“You’re killing me,” he said.
“Are you going to walk me to my door or what?”
So Senator Porter Galloway walked me to my door and we said good night. I watched him walk down the steps and to his car. He turned and waved and I blew him a kiss. If I had not thought that running down the steps to him would land me in bed in ten minutes, I would’ve run down those steps like a track star w
ith my hair on fire. My instincts told me to let him go.
I went inside and Mary Beth called out, “How was dinner?”
“Mary Beth? I’m in love and I’m going to marry him.”
“Does he know this?”
“I have not told him yet.”
“Yeah, first date and all that. Prolly better to wait a bit. We don’t want to scare the boy.”
I slept the sleep of the dead, right through my alarm until almost ten o’clock. It was my cell phone that woke me up. And to my surprise it was Cindy Lue Elder calling me, the woman who showed up at our party, the one who worked for Porter.
“What time is it?” I said instead of even saying hello.
“Ten. Oh! I’m sorry! I woke you up, didn’t I?”
“Who’s this?”
“Oh, Lord. Ashley? It’s me, Cindy Elder from Senator Galloway’s office. Do you remember me?”
I untangled myself from my sheets and sat up on the side of my bed.
“Of course. Listen, I can’t talk now. I’m supposed to be at work and for some dumb reason I slept through my alarm. Can I call you later?”
“Sure. I just wanted to take you out for lunch. How’s tomorrow at one?”
“Um, that sounds fine. Want to meet at my gallery?”
“Sure. We can decide where to go then.”
We hung up and I broke the world record for getting dressed and out of the house, calling the Turners on the way. Mr. Turner answered the phone. He was totally cool.
“Don’t worry! Take your time! Be careful driving. We’ll see you soon.”
What a sweetie he was. I began to relax. Why did Cindy Elder want to have lunch? What in the world was on her mind? Well, it obviously has to do with Porter, I thought. She must have heard about us. Maybe she was a jealous nut who was going to throw acid in my face or something terrible! No. I was being overly suspicious. No way would she do something awful like that. She was way too sane. Well, I told myself, I’d just have to wait and see.
The next day came and Cindy walked into the Turner Gallery on the stroke of one.
“Hey! How are you?” I said.
“How am I?” She took off her huge sunglasses and revealed red and swollen eyes. “What do you think? Nice, right?”
She’d obviously been crying for a long time.
“Oh, God! How terrible! What happened?”
“Let’s go eat and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“There’s a little sandwich place right down the street.”
It was crowded and we got the last empty table for two. I sort of hoped she’d keep her glasses on while we had lunch because who could eat and look at that?
I ordered a salad with grilled chicken and she ordered egg salad on white bread with potato chips and we both asked for sweetened iced tea, which is sort of the state drink if you don’t count PBR. And I was sitting quietly just waiting for her to tell me something about which I had a growing suspicion I really didn’t want to hear. Our tea came and I practically drained the glass in one gulp. She was quiet too, probably not knowing where or how to begin, and the longer she waited to talk to me, the more certain I was that whatever it was she wanted to say was going to be horrible.
“Okay,” she finally said, “I’m going to tell you this and you can believe it or not. I know that you’re seeing Porter and I just want to warn you. He’s not so nice.”
“What do you mean?”
Our waitress put our food in front of us and refilled our tea glasses.
“Y’all need anything else?” she said.
“No thanks,” I said.
“I’m fine,” Cindy said.
“Okay then,” the waitress said and walked away.
“We’ve been seeing each other off and on for about a year. I wanted a commitment from him and he didn’t want to give me one and so we began to fight. We’d break up and then I’d beg to see him again, because I was in love with him, you know? So we’d go along for a while and then we’d start fighting again. He just yelled at me, telling me I was lucky that he’d go out with me at all. Well, we finally broke up after he saw you at the gallery fund-raiser. But even then, at least I still had a job.”
“Gosh. I’m sorry.”
“I know. Listen, I’d disagree with him about a policy position or something in a meeting and then later on that night he’d go nuts, screaming at me, telling me I was out of line.”
“What are you saying, Cindy? That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, terrible is right. Soon after the fund-raiser I went over to his house in Columbia to try and make some sense of what was left of our relationship and he fired me. I’ve never been fired from anything! I graduated at the top of my class and I worked so many hours for him it was ridiculous. All I had to do was disagree with him over a few tiny things in a meeting and it cost me my job?”
“I am so sorry.”
“Yes, he fired me and I’m going home to Cleveland. You don’t want to get involved with him, Ashley. He may seem like a nice guy but he’s not. And he’s not looking to settle down and get married.”
“It’s different between us, Cindy. He’s the one pursuing me.”
“You mean that love-at-first-sight line?”
I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t believe he’d used the same line with her. My heart sank.
“You don’t have to tell me another thing,” she said. “Here’s my card. Even though I’m unemployed at the moment, that is my cell-phone number right there. Call me if you ever want to talk, okay? I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this except I liked you and you didn’t seem like somebody who wouldn’t get her heart broken. God knows, he broke mine.”
“Thanks,” I said. My appetite was gone. “I can’t eat.”
“Me either,” she said.
Something about her story didn’t hang together quite right. Either Cindy Elder was one of those superpossessive, supersensitive women who couldn’t take no for an answer or Porter simply dumped her for me. Nobody likes to be the dumpee. It’s humiliating. Poor Cindy.
CHAPTER 10
Clayton—On the Ledge
I was lying in her bed and thinking about the fact that I was in deep shit. I mean shit right up to my nostrils. If I blinked or moved in the slightest way, I would drown in shit. And while I’m throwing the word shit around like a Frisbee, I’m also thinking about how amazing Sophia is in bed and how delicious her skin is to me. It’s like tasting Tuscan olives and smelling the subtle fragrance of some kind of flowers at the same time. My God.
From my vantage point, propped up on pillows covered in linens from some outrageously priced store on Madison Avenue, I was watching her take a shower through the clear glass walls in her bathroom, trying to memorize her beautiful, beautiful body. Sure, she’d had a little work done, but it was money well spent if you asked me. I had tried to talk Liz into at least getting a little liposuction on her chin but she wouldn’t hear of it. It’s not supposed to hurt too much and God knows we had the money. But oddly, now that I’d loosened the purse strings and told her she could spend what she wants to spend, she doesn’t want my money anymore. True, I don’t want her spending money on things she doesn’t really need. But a little nip and tuck is good for everyone after fifty.
But back to my original statement of my whereabouts? I was in deep shit because in my gut I knew Sophia was not as in love with me as I was with her. Maybe I should ask my doctor for some Viagra or something to make things more exciting from my end. Everyone seems to use it these days. In fact, I’d bet it’s the number one prescribed recreational medication in America. And while we’re on the topic, how about I heard that the insurance companies only pay for four capsules a month? Now they’re going to decide how often we can screw? Are they kidding? This is much worse than National Security Agency surveillance! Just my opinion. I’d rather give up my denta
l plan.
My cell phone rang. I reached over to see the caller ID. It was Liz. Shit! I hopped out of bed and let the call go to voice mail, but I knew I had to call her back right away. That was our agreement. She called; I answered. Otherwise, there would be suspicion that could lead to some very ugly stuff. So I yanked my shirt off the chair to cover myself and I hurried to the terrace. Then I was afraid Sophia would get out of the shower and start calling me or something. I knew she was in a hurry to get to a meeting. I pulled the sliding glass door behind me to close it and put on my shirt, just in case a neighbor had a telescope focused on Sophia’s terrace. I called Liz back.
“Hi, Liz!” I said, sounding upbeat because it was sort of titillating to be almost naked on your lover’s terrace while talking to your wife. “What’s going on?”
“Well, I wanted to tell you about my donor dinner. Clayton, it was just a dream . . .”
Liz went on and on and I listened, not realizing that Sophia had locked the terrace door and left the apartment. I started to panic. I checked the door. I was locked out of her apartment, on her terrace, wearing only a shirt.
“Clayton? Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes! I’m fine, dear, just on my way to get coffee—I was feeling like a cappuccino, you know, something different.”
“Oh, well, good. Sometimes it’s good to change things up.”
“Yes, I agree.” I thought, Oh boy, this is going to be embarrassing. “Well, I’m really glad to hear that your dinner went so well.”
“Clayton, I’ve been raising money for twenty years and this is like Christmas finally came. I mean, I was so surprised that I cried.”
“You cried? Actual tears? Right in front of them?”
“Yes. I mean, I know it sounds weak but you know what? They understood the cause! David Malcolm’s wife, Annie, was even on a board of a battered women’s shelter in Seattle! I can’t wait for you to meet them. They really want to make a difference in this whole domestic violence issue. They want to be national role models for education and change. I swear I was checking their backs for wings! Remember that movie with John Travolta? His wings hanging out of his topcoat? What was it? Michael? Yes, that’s it. Oh my, Clayton? I’m telling you . . .”