Semi-Sweet (2 page)

“No regrets.” He opened his eyes. “Why don’t you get naked and join me?”

She shook her head, smiling. “Bath’s too small, babe.”

But it wasn’t too small, he was too big. Six foot four and wide as a rugby player. Beside him Leah was a nymphet, a five-foot-two
slip of a thing with boy-short blond hair and the palest skin, weighing just over half his 210 pounds.

One time in bed she’d fallen asleep on top of him, one of the few times they’d managed to spend a whole night together, and
the weight of her hadn’t bothered him at all.

Hannah was more solidly built, edging always toward a plumpness she battled against but that Patrick had never objected to.
He’d loved the small ripples of flesh around her waist, the heaviness of her breasts, the generous curves of her buttocks,
the comfortable, dimply softness of her thighs.

Hannah’s bath was bigger, too, an old cast-iron affair, stained and mottled with spidery cracks but roomy enough for both
of them in a pinch. He had some fond memories of that bath—and what harm were memories?

“Right, I think you’re clean enough.” Leah squeezed out the sponge. “Up you get.”

“Are you going to bathe me every night?” Standing on the blue mat drying his hair briskly as Leah wrapped another towel around
his waist.

“Maybe. Depends on how you behave yourself.” She turned toward the door. “Follow me in when you’re not dripping anymore.”

Patrick wiped steam from the mirror and checked his reflection. He raked fingers through the thick, almost black hair, rasped
a hand across the stubble on his jaw. He should have shaved before he’d left Hannah’s—Leah didn’t appreciate the he-man look—but
he’d been anxious to be off, nervous that Hannah might come home early from the restaurant, maybe to plead with him to stay.
He brushed his teeth with Leah’s toothbrush and dropped the towels into her pale blue wicker basket.

In the bedroom she’d lit candles and spread a fresh bath sheet on the fawn carpet. “Lie on your stomach,” she ordered, and
Patrick lowered himself to the floor. Leah undid the belt of her robe and knelt and straddled him, and he closed his eyes
as he felt the warm massage oil trickling onto his back, as her hands began to spread it over his skin, as the scent of eucalyptus
wrapped itself around him.

“I could really get used to this,” he murmured.

“No talking.”

Her fingertips drummed down his vertebrae, the sides of her hands chopped across his shoulder blades. She’d put on one of
her salon CDs, all breathy panpipes and swishing waves, and he thought of the CDs arranged alphabetically on Hannah’s bookshelves—Michael
Bublé and Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue and Paolo Nutini. He thought of the two of them sprawled on Hannah’s deep red couch
reading the Sunday papers, with Michael Bublé singing about stardust.

Hannah’s bookshelves, Hannah’s couch. Even after sharing it with her for more than a year, he’d never regarded the house as
theirs, always hers. It was officially hers, of course. She’d bought it three years before they’d met, and she’d taken in
a housemate to share the costs. When Patrick replaced the housemate, he and Hannah had split the bills and mortgage repayments,
and he’d repainted the entire downstairs, sorted out the garden, and bought the patio furniture she’d never gotten around
to, but it was always Hannah’s house. Maybe on some level he’d known that it wasn’t his final destination.

“Roll over.”

It had been Hannah who’d led him to Leah. He’d complained of aches and pains after a longer-than-usual bout in the garden,
digging up her ancient box hedge and replacing it with willow fencing, and Hannah had dropped in to Leah’s salon the following
day and bought him a gift certificate for a massage.

She hadn’t asked him about the woman he’d met, the woman he was leaving her for. He’d expected her to, he’d been ready to
tell her the truth—it was the least she deserved—but she hadn’t asked. She’d find out soon enough, of course: Like most Irish
towns, Clongarvin was too small, and he was too well known. How would she feel when she heard Leah’s name, knowing that she
herself had been the one who’d brought them together?

Leah moved from his chest to his legs, stroking from knee to thigh in strong upward movements. For such a petite creature,
she gave a massage that was deep and satisfying. She eased his legs gently apart and began to knead his inner thighs, using
slow, circular movements with her knuckles. As she inched toward his groin, he felt himself stiffening pleasantly in response.

“Why, hello there,” she smiled, and Patrick reached for her, sliding the robe off her shoulders, and Hannah was forgotten.

It was the longest two hours of her life, but she’d gotten through it with nobody having guessed. She smiled and thanked them
all for their help—her parents and Adam, and Adam’s two cousins, and one of their girlfriends whom she’d met for the first
time a week ago—and she drank the champagne when they toasted her success, and she ate enough Dover sole not to arouse anyone’s
interest, although every mouthful of her favorite fish was an effort.

She told them that Patrick was in bed with food poisoning, and they all accepted it—why wouldn’t they?

“Oh, the poor thing,” her mother said. “I’ll never forget how awful I felt after those prawns that time—remember, Stephen?”

“I certainly do,” Stephen answered, winking at Hannah. “Not one of your finer moments, I’d have to say.”

Geraldine shot him a stern look. “Very funny.” She turned back to Hannah. “What did Patrick eat?”

“Er, sausages, I think.” Hannah watched as Adam filled her glass, and willed the conversation to move on.

Near the end of the meal, when she was doing her best with a slice of lemon cheesecake, Adam leaned across and said quietly,
“You okay? Anything up?”

She shook her head. “Just a bit stressed about the opening, that’s all.” Her face was rigid from smiling. She hated lying
to him.

Of course she’d have to tell him. She’d have to tell her parents. But not tonight, when she’d hardly taken it in herself.
Maybe it was good that she had this distraction while Patrick’s bombshell was still so fresh and raw. Maybe by the time she
got home, the first shock waves would be receding and the urge to smash something or have serious hysterics would have passed.

But the thought of the dark and empty house waiting for her, the thought of going home to nobody, the thought of all the unanswered
questions, caused a new stab of despair. She lifted her glass and drank too quickly, splashing a little red wine onto the
front of her horrible black dress. No matter, she thought, dabbing roughly at the damp patch. Who’d see a stain on black?
And anyway, she wasn’t planning to wear it again. She hated it, and now it was the dress she’d been wearing when Patrick had
broken up with her. It was the breakup dress. How could she ever look at it and not remember?

He’s gone.
She said the words in her head, and a dart of pain shot through her. She pushed her glass toward the wine bottle. “More,”
she said to Adam. “Just a bit.” Not too much or the truth might come out, and then the night would be ruined for everyone.

She shared a taxi home with her parents, having truthfully pleaded a headache when the others began talking about a nightclub.
The driver with the woolly hat was still on duty, the same soft jazzy music still wafting from his speakers, the same appley
smell in his cab. Hardly surprising, Hannah supposed, in a place the size of Clongarvin to have the driver who brought you
out taking you home again. She sat beside her mother in the back, afraid suddenly that Patrick would still be in the house.

“I must say I really like that restaurant,” Geraldine said. “The food is just right, and they don’t give you huge portions
like other places.”

“Mmm.”

How long did it take to pack up your half of a relationship? What if he were just leaving now, what if they met him on the
doorstep, surrounded by cases? She should have stayed out longer, ignored her pounding head, and gone on smiling for another
hour or two.

“And that waitress couldn’t have been more helpful.”

“No.”

The house was dark, and there was no sign of a suitcase outside. Hannah’s heart sank as she opened the taxi door, wanting
him there now as fervently as she’d dreaded it moments earlier.

“We’ll wait till you get inside,” her mother said. “Have you your key out?”

The hall was warm. Patrick’s leather jacket was missing from its usual hook. His keys, still attached to their fish-shaped
key ring, were on the hall table. His golf umbrella was gone. She kept her coat on as she walked slowly through the house.
His laptop, his books, his CDs—all absent. His toothbrush, his pajamas, his slippers, his clothes. His aftershave, his razor.
His tortoiseshell comb. The toffee-colored bathrobe she’d given him for Christmas, less than two weeks ago.

She crunched on something as she crossed the bedroom and bent to pick up an earring. She remembered the biscuit tin falling
to the floor earlier and now saw it sitting back on the dressing table with her jewelry inside. She dropped in the stray earring
and sat on the bed, feeling bereft.

He was gone. He’d left her, and he was gone. He’d met someone else, and he’d packed up everything and left her. They were
over. There
was
no “they” anymore.

She kicked off her shoes and pulled back the duvet and climbed into bed in her clothes. In her new black dress and black coat
and blue scarf, in her foundation and mascara and eye shadow and blusher and lipstick. She curled into a ball and closed her
eyes. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, yearning for his. Wanting the warm weight of him on top of her, wanting
his mouth tasting hers. Wanting to pull his pillow toward her but afraid of what that might do to her.

She wished she’d had more to drink.

Patrick lay on his back in the dark, wide awake. Leah was facing away from him, a faint asthmatic wheeze to her breathing.
He moved his head and saw 2:35 blinking redly on the front of the clock radio. The room was brighter than Hannah’s bedroom
at night, the cream curtains no barrier against a streetlight directly outside. There was more traffic here, too, on Clongarvin’s
second-busiest street. He’d get used to it.

He was going to have to get used to a lot of things.

He turned onto his side and reached toward Leah, stroking the line of warm, naked skin from hip to rib cage. She made a soft
sound as he moved his hand to rest on her breast. He suddenly found himself remembering Hannah’s breasts, how much fuller
they were. He pushed the image away and ran a thumb slowly across Leah’s nipple, back and forth, feeling it stiffen in response
to his touch. Leah stirred again, her breathing lengthening, and pressed her body back into his, her hand sliding onto his
thigh. He reached past her flat stomach, and she drew a breath slowly as his hand found its way between her legs.

Hannah was sweating when she woke. The clock beside the bed read 3:11. There was a tightness around her throat, and something
was bunched uncomfortably at her waist. She pushed the duvet back and groped for the lamp switch. As the room flooded with
light, as she took in the empty space beside her, as she looked down at her rumpled clothes, it all came flooding back.