I shudder, trying not to wonder what would be worse: no resolution to Mason’s case, or a resolution like that. The story makes me even more curious about my neighbor and that man on his porch; there has to be a reason why he seemed so guarded this morning. Why he didn’t want me going near his house. Why they both refused to speak to me, and why he was at the vigil on Monday, watching from a distance.
“But that’s enough about that,” Waylon continues, changing the subject. “Let’s eat first. I hope you like chicken marsala. It’s my specialty.”
“You have a specialty?” I ask, finally tipping my glass back and taking a drink. I’m still trying to figure out how to introduce the topic of my neighbor; I know that without any concrete evidence, a spot on the registry, or even a name, it’s really nothing more than a feeling at this point. An instinct. “Don’t ask me to cook for you, then. My specialty is spaghetti. Chicken nuggets when I’m feeling fancy.”
Waylon looks at me and smiles, but it’s a sad kind of smile. He’s thinking of Mason, I’m sure. The types of dinners I used to make for him: cut-up hot dogs and Kraft macaroni and cheese, tiny little finger foods served on plastic trays with cubby holes meant to keep them from touching.
“Family recipe, I should say,” he continues. “I can’t take too much credit. I’m Italian.”
“Italian,” I repeat, fidgeting with the glass. “I’m not quite sure what I am, to be honest. Southern? Does that count?”
“I think it does.” He grabs a skillet and shakes it around a bit, filling the kitchen with the aroma of garlic and olive oil, oregano and shallots and salt. “Your family has always been from around here, then?”
I look up at him. Every time he mentions my past, my family, it’s in such a casual manner—like he doesn’t care about getting to know the story, but instead, he just cares about getting to know me. I can’t tell if it’s genuine yet, if he really doesn’t know, or if he’s just good at faking. I’d like to find out.
“Yeah,” I say. “Though I’m sure you already knew that.”
He looks thrown off, like he’s about to apologize, but before he can, I let out a laugh and take another sip.
“I’m teasing. Yes, born and raised in Beaufort. My dad, too, and his dad, and his dad. As far back as it can go, I think. The Rhetts were like royalty in that town.”
I’m sure he catches the were, the intentional use of past tense, but he doesn’t ask.
“What brought you to Savannah?”
“I came because of a job,” I say, sinking deeper into my chair. I’m getting comfortable now, the easy back-and-forth of conversation in my own home something that has felt so far gone lately, so foreign. I’ve missed it. “But I stayed because of a boy, as stupid as that sounds.”
“Ben?”
“Yes, Ben.”
“How did you two get together?”
“The job.” I laugh, glancing out the window again. I can’t help but think about the fact that if someone happens to walk past my home, glimpses inside the illuminated window, it won’t be one body they’ll see sitting at the table, eating alone. It’ll be two. “He was my boss. I’m a walking cliché, I know.”
“I wasn’t gonna say it.” Waylon smiles.
“But we didn’t meet at work,” I add. “We met before then.”
“So you quit the job so you could be together?”
“Pretty much. Sounds awful when you say it like that.”
“Did you like the job?”
“I loved it,” I say. “But I loved him, too.”
Waylon tosses some mushrooms into the skillet, and it hisses back to life. We’re quiet for a while, and I watch as he cooks, mixing in the Marsala wine, the chicken broth, the heavy cream. People always judge me when they find out about that—and to be honest, if it had happened to anyone but myself, I’d judge them, too. I never thought of myself as that kind of girl: the kind who would intentionally shrink in order to fit neatly into the life of another.
But it wasn’t like that with Ben. It wasn’t.
I never even thought of what we had as an affair. That seemed too strong a word—too dirty, too wrong—and I think that’s because the relationship that had started to unfold between us was situated somewhere in the murky in-between: not wrong, exactly, but definitely not right, either. It was something that defied definition, something only we could understand. We didn’t cross any concrete lines; we didn’t break any rules. We never had sex—we never even kissed, apart from that night on the river, which, in my mind, didn’t even count.