The crowd at the band shell expanded so rapidly that he wondered if he’d ever be able to find Cynthia. But then he caught sight of her, walking toward him with a smile and a wave. Her gauzy white dress deepened her tan, and she carried a dark red sweater over one arm, a basket over the other.
“I was afraid we’d miss each other in this mob,” she said, helping him hunt for a spot on the grass where they could spread his blanket.
“I wouldn’t have left here until I found you.”
They had to put the blanket close to the lake, quite a distance from the band shell, but he was pleased. He wanted the music to provide the background for the evening, nothing more.
Cynthia pulled a bowl of red grapes from her basket. She reached in again and produced a bottle of white wine and a plastic bag packed with wedges of cheese. He uncorked the wine while she arranged the cheese on a little china plate. She handed him a plastic wineglass, along with a pink cloth napkin.
He watched her busyness with a smile. Her bare arms were perfectly shaped, her fingernails the color of roses.
It might have been a mistake, meeting her at the band shell. He’d come here often with Estelle, though certainly not to hear Debussy. Estelle loathed Debussy. Too sweet, she said. But the music seemed a perfect fit for Cynthia. She was a gentle presence next to him. Soft, almost shy, although he imagined a steel core inside of her that had gotten her where she was professionally.
She wanted to hear about fetal surgery, the technical details.
She followed him easily, said she was a frustrated nurse trapped in an accountant’s body. Her brown eyes rarely left his face as he spoke, unless he touched her or reached for her hand. Then she’d turn her head away from him. He had the feeling she’d been wounded once or twice.
In the middle of La Mer, she slipped a grape between her lips and leaned back on her arms. “I don’t understand your living arrangements, Cole. They sound . . . odd.”
“It’s simple. When I was in medical school I lived with Jay DeSantis, who is now a surgeon at Blair. Then his girlfriend Janni moved in with us. Then Janni inherited the Chapel House and we all moved in there. Janni and Jay hired an architect to make some changes on the house and when her—the architect’s—husband died, she moved in with us. Then about a year and a half ago, Kit moved to New Jersey from Seattle, and she was a friend of Janni’s so she moved in. Then we took Rennie in as a foster kid.” He loved recounting that tale. And he loved the stunned look on Cynthia’s face.
“My God. Do you know how bizarre that sounds?”
He shrugged innocently. “Does it?”
“You live on a commune. Do you grow your own vegetables?”
He laughed, hoping she didn’t mean to be as cynical as she sounded.
“Orrin doesn’t live there?”
“No.”
“Aren’t he and Kit . . . I assumed he was the father of Kit’s baby.”
“No. That was someone she’s no longer seeing.”
“Oh.” She looked pained. “It would be terrible to have a baby without the father around.”
“Well, she’s hardly lonely. Besides, Kit’s pretty tough.”
Cynthia looked thoughtful. “What will happen when you want to settle down?”
“There’s always room for one more.”
“You mean you’d stay there? In that house with a million other people?”
He sighed. He’d hoped she’d understand. “It would be very hard to leave.”
She shook her head. “There’s something unhealthy about it. Six adults living together. Professional adults. If you were all students or people just getting your feet on the ground, I could see it. Maybe.”
“Five.”
“What?”
“There are only five adults.”
“However many. It just isn’t done.”
“We’ll have a baby there too in the not too distant future.” He was baiting her shamelessly.
“When is Kit due?”
“September. If she makes it that long. She’s having a few problems, and I’m not happy with some of her test results.”
“You sound like you’re her doctor.”
“I am.”
She leaned back, and he could only read the look on her face as horror.
“You live with her, you work with her, you’re her obstetrician . . . Don’t you think that’s a peculiar arrangement?”
“It’s not a problem,” he said. He was growing uncomfortable with her questions. He poured himself another glass of wine and leaned back on his elbows. “If you’re done criticizing me, maybe we can listen to the music.”
She looked stricken. “Cole, I’m sorry. Here I am with somebody that I really like for the first time in a long while, and I’m destroying it before it’s begun. It’s a bad habit.”
She seemed human again, and he risked it now, taking her hand. “We all have our vices,” he said.