in and pretend she was looking for someone, but didn’t really want to draw attention to herself. Instead, she pushed through the door, then pulled herself up on one of the vinyl-covered stools along the bar. She was pleased that she wasn’t the only customer, even on a Monday afternoon. There was one man at the other end of the bar, drinking a bottle of Coors Light and keeping his eye on one of the multiple televisions that were all showing what looked like a talk show devoted to sports. And there was a youngish couple in one of the booths along the other side of the bar. Between them was a pile of nachos the size of a bowling ball.
The bartender, a stringy blonde in black jeans and a white tank top, came down the bar, and Hen ordered a Shock Top, the only beer pull she could read from where she was sitting.
“Orange in that?”
“Sorry?”
“Orange slice. In your beer.”
“No, thanks.”
The beer came. Hen paid in cash, left a tip, and the bartender returned to the other end of the bar and began scrolling through her phone. Hen took a long sip of her beer, then looked around. The place was fine for a meeting with Matthew. The booths had high backs, and Hen assumed they’d be able to have a conversation without being overheard. It wasn’t overly lit, but it was wallpapered in television screens, so it also wasn’t that dark. And Hen assumed that no one she knew—not that she knew many people—would be hanging around the Winner’s Circle in the afternoon.
She assumed that afternoons would work for meeting with Matthew. He was a schoolteacher, so he got out early. And there was simply no way that she could sneak out again at night. Lloyd would never forgive her.
She drank the rest of the beer, a light buzz settling into her body, relaxing her muscles, then checked the time. She’d have to leave now if she wanted to beat Lloyd home.
The following day Hen didn’t go back to the studio. It was sunny again after two days of rain, and the leaves that had held on to the trees were more vibrant than ever. All of Sycamore Street shimmered with color. After lunch, she pulled her winter clothes from the plastic storage containers they’d been in since the previous winter in Cambridge. She found her warmest sweater, a wool turtleneck in a color Lloyd liked to call “fungus” and she thought of as a muted orange, plus a fleece-lined cap, and went out onto the porch with a big mug of tea and her sketchbook. The sun was already low in the sky, just over the tops of the roofs across the street, but it kept the porch relatively warm. She moved her chair to the sunniest portion, put her feet up on the bench they’d been using as a table, and kept her eye on the road.
It was almost dark when Matthew’s Fiat came down Sycamore and pulled into the driveway. Hen froze. She’d been so keyed up waiting to see when her neighbor returned home that she hadn’t entirely decided what to do when he did.
He parked halfway down the driveway and got out of his car. Hen stood, forcing herself to push through the screen door, then walk down the three steps so that she was on the edge of her own driveway, looking across at Matthew.
He turned to her and Hen walked toward him, her head down a little, not wanting to make eye contact until they were talking. He waited for her, a leather briefcase in his left hand.
“Let’s meet,” she said, when she was close enough.
“Okay,” he said. “Now?”
Hen hadn’t been prepared for that and quickly shook her head. “No, let’s meet tomorrow. There’s a bar in Wickford called the Winner’s Circle. On 117. Do you know it?”
He shook his head. “No, but I can find it. Why do you want to meet in a bar?”
“I’m not meeting with you alone,” Hen said.
“Right,” he said, as though he just remembered why they were having this meeting in the first place.
“When can you get there?”
“I can get there by three thirty.”
“That works. Three thirty. There are booths to the left when you walk in.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding.
Hen turned and walked back to her house before he could see how badly she was shaking.
Chapter 25
Matthew parked in front of the used sports equipment store that was next to the Winner’s Circle. He didn’t