The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(51)

“Did any of the people you went to school with get famous?”

“One of them, a woman from Omaha nobody really took seriously because she was so pretty and blonde and earnest. She does these gorgeous portraits.”

“And you,” he says. “New York Times bestseller.”

His voice is deep and warm, his body so near. “Yes,” I say, claiming it aloud. “Me too.” I take a sip of water, shift the conversation his direction. “Is it okay to ask about the fact that you don’t have kids?”

“I think we’re moving into that level of intimacy,” he says, and I can tell by his tone that it’s slightly tongue in cheek. We’ve been pretty intimate conversationally for a while. “I did want kids. Never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have any. But my wife didn’t, and she would have had to carry a lot more of the burden of care. Her career was very important to her.”

“Like Suze.”

“A bit, I guess, but Suze had a baby, right? Gave it up for adoption?”

It’s not something we ever talk about, not Suze and I, and certainly not Ben and I. It startles me a little. “How do you know that?”

“Small town. Everybody knew.”

“I guess they probably would have.”

“Well, and her shaved head. It had to have been hell to come back to school with her short hair and that label hung around her neck.” He puts the words in air quotes: “Unwed mother.”

I nod, a wash of remembered shame moving through me. I wasn’t the friend to her then that I should have been, but I also didn’t really know what to do. My own life was a mess with my parents getting divorced, selling the Portland house, feeling so bereft at the loss of the life I was comfortable with. In my fifteen-year-old self-centeredness, I’d believed our pain to be equal.

How could I have ever believed that?

The waiter brings our salads and the conversation lightens, turns to the flower plans for next year, some new cultivars he wants to try at the farm, and the series of paintings I’m working on, and how much fun it is to have Jasmine with me. As we’re winding down, ordering coffees and one slice of their famed blueberry cobbler to share, he mentions that it was one of his wife’s specialties. “She grew up in Michigan,” he says, “and they have great blueberries there, but nothing like ours.”

I smile. “Oregon: everything is better.”

“Agreed.” He touches my hand lightly, lifts it away.

When the cobbler comes, I ask about his wife. “You met her in . . . was it Cairo?”

“In a hotel restaurant, actually. She was on a break from an archaeology dig, and I wanted to see the Nile.”

I want to ask if it was amazing, but I don’t want him to get distracted, and of course the Nile was amazing. I mean, what an absurd thing to even ask. I lean on my hand, watching his face as he remembers. “Why did you like her?”

He meets my eyes. “She was pretty. She had really nice hair and . . . well, tits.”

If it were a first date of an ordinary sort, the comment would be out of place, but we’ve been talking about everything under the sun for the past six months, since he came to work for me, and I know he has this earthy side.

I laugh, and straighten a little because this is one of my attributes, too, even if they’re not exactly what they once were.

He tilts his head, meets my eyes for a long moment, and something new rises, knitting a bubble around us, creating a world that is only ours. The potential leaves me a little breathless, and more than a little terrified. If I give in to all these . . . desires, will it undo me?

And yet, there he is, the Ben I’ve come to know so well, smelling of something delectable I once understood and haven’t forgotten. It draws me closer. He takes my hand.

“And? What else?” I prompt.

“Do we want to talk about her?”

“Why not? I want to know about you.”

“Fair enough.” He moves his thumb over my knuckles. “She was really smart, and independent, and she made me work pretty hard to get her attention.” It’s his turn to edge closer. His thigh and mine are touching, the skin heating between us. “What about you? How did you meet your husband?”

“Oh my God, it was such a long time ago.” I take a breath and let it go. “We met in art school.” I turn my hand and Ben moves the pad of his thumb over the center of my palm. It’s heady, such a light whisper, and I feel the pulse moving down my wrist, up to my elbow, beyond. “He was a junior when I was a freshman, and he was kind of the it guy, you know? Everybody thought he was going to be a really big star.” Ben moves his index finger along the back of my hand. It sends tiny stars through my body. “I had a big, big crush on him. That was my style in those days, you know, crushing from afar.”

He laughs a little. “Don’t we all?”

“Maybe.” I nod. “For a year, he didn’t even know I existed, and then we were in a class when I was a sophomore and he noticed me.”

“Why did you like him?”

“He had great hair, very thick, very dark”—I realize that Ben, too, has that same thick, wavy hair, so dark, and I suddenly wonder if I will have the chance to plunge my fingers into it—“and he was good-looking, and he was kind of the king of the school.” I lift a shoulder. “Sex was really the main thing if I’m honest.”