The parking lot of Red Anchor was surprisingly full for three o’clock on a rainy Thursday afternoon. Just as I cruised in with Aidan in the passenger seat of my very recognizable white Escalade, a group of women spilled out of the restaurant and ran through the raindrops toward their cars. One of them looked directly at me, through my windshield. With a jolt, I recognized her. Julie owned a boutique in town that I frequented. I’d been there with Hannah a couple of weeks before, looking for a dress to wear to the housewarming party. Julie knew me, and worse, she knew my daughter.
“Get down,” I said to Aidan.
“What?”
“Ach, forget it. Too late.”
I sped past her, around the side of the building, stopping in the alley between the restaurant and the strip mall next door.
“What are you doing?” Aidan said.
The rain came down hard, and the wipers swished. I was so unnerved at being spotted by someone I knew that my heart was skittering. I looked in the rearview mirror, trying to see if Julie was still there. But from that angle, in the heavy rain, the parking lot was hidden from view. If I couldn’t see the parking lot, then people in the parking lot couldn’t see me.
“You should get out now.”
“Here? It’s pouring. Can you drop me at the front door?”
“Isn’t that the back entrance right there?” I said, nodding toward a blank-looking door across from a collection of trash bins.
“I don’t go in that way.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s a woman I know in the parking lot, and where there’s one, there’re others.”
“So?”
“So, people talk. If she sees me dropping you off, she’ll think we spent the night together. She could blab that all over town.”
“We did spend the night together.”
“I don’t need everybody knowing that. It could hurt me in the divorce case. Jason is supposed to be the bad guy. Not me.”
I could see him getting mad again. His eyes clouded over, and his jaw tensed. His hands clenched into fists, and I started to get nervous.
“I get it,” he said. “You took a walk on the wild side, and now you’re done. I get tossed aside. I’m expendable.”
“I don’t understand why you’re taking this so personally,” I said.
“It was personal. It sure seemed that way when you had your legs wrapped around my neck.”
“Please don’t talk like that.”
“Too rough for your dainty ears? Don’t lie to yourself, Caroline. You wanted it. You still want it.”
“All I mean is, keeping this on the down low for now is not a judgment on you, or my feelings for you. It’s about my own situation. I never lied to you, Aidan. You know I’m married.”
“You’re not married, not for long anyway. He left you for a Russian hooker. He took your money. You need to wake up and face the facts.”
I wanted to appease him, but anger flashed through me. Who the hell did this kid think he was, talking to me like that?
“Whether I’m married or not, and how I handle it, that’s my business. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Then, what is this?” he said, moving his hand back and forth in the space between us.
“What is what?”
“What do we have together? How do you feel about me?”
“I think we had a nice time.”
“That’s it?”
“It was one night.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. It sounds like you’re blowing me off.”
“How can I say where this is going at this point? We hardly know each other.”
“Hardly know each other? What the fuck, Caroline.”
He slammed his fist against the passenger window so hard that I jumped.
“Stop that! You’ll break it.”
My heart was pounding. I had plenty of evidence at this point that my first impression of Aidan had been right, and my alcohol-and lust-fueled second impression had been very, very wrong. Aidan had a probation officer. And a gun. And he was in my car, in an alley where no one could see us, on the edge of becoming violent.
“You’re going to see him now, aren’t you?” he said.
“Who?”
“Your husband.”
Had he eavesdropped, back at his apartment complex? It seemed impossible, given that I was sitting in the car when I spoke to Hannah about the dinner, and Aidan was inside.
“I told you, I’m going to visit my daughter,” I said.
“But he’s gonna be there, isn’t he?”
I could lie and tell him he was wrong. But Aidan’s behavior was so possessive, and so over-the-top given the nature of our relationship that I felt like I had to talk some sense into him.
“Aidan, no offense,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, “but if I choose to see my husband, that’s not your business.”
Without warning, he threw himself forward and slammed his head against the dashboard three times in quick succession. I screamed.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?”
A smear of deep red stood out on the rich beige leather. I looked at Aidan in horror and saw blood trickling from a cut on his temple.
“You’re bleeding. Oh, my God.”
“You hurt my feelings, Caroline,” he said, his eyes wet with unshed tears.
Every woman likes to be desired. But it was completely bizarre that Aidan would be so into me after one night. Something was off with this guy. At the same time, maybe I bore some responsibility. I thought we were having a no-strings fling, but had I made that sufficiently clear to him? Had I led him on? He was a grown man, but he was so much younger than me. I had the impression he’d been with lots of women, but it was possible he hadn’t had many serious relationships. Maybe he wasn’t a player after all. Maybe he was vulnerable. Maybe he had a tender heart, and I’d bruised it.
Leaning across Aidan, I grabbed a pack of Kleenex from the glove box.
“C’mere and let me fix that,” I said.
The skin around the cut was rapidly purpling. I dabbed at the blood with the tissue, and he flinched.
“I’m sorry, did that hurt?”
“Yes.”
He looked at me with blue eyes that swam with tears. I felt a strange flash of that feeling I’d get when Hannah was little and skinned her knee. Pity and protectiveness at once.
“Restaurants always have first-aid kits,” I said, in a firm, motherly tone. “I want you to go inside and put some disinfectant on this right away. You hear me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry I freaked out.”
“It’s okay. We’re both tired. It was a crazy night, right?”
I smiled, and he gave me a sad smile back.
“That it was, Caroline. That it was.”
“You need to take care of yourself. So, do like I said, and get that cut cleaned up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, sure. When will I see you again?”
“Very soon,” I said. But I was lying, and I suspected he knew that.
I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. That seemed to mollify him. He got out and ran through the rain to the restaurant’s back door. As he disappeared inside, I exhaled a long breath, then pulled out of that parking lot so fast that my tires squealed.