Stiltsville: A Novel - By Susanna Daniel Page 0,86

neck, his hot breath. Then he moved away. By the time I turned around he was walking back up the beach toward the car. He stopped at the door on the driver’s side and looked back at me, and I followed, still catching my breath. He got in, and I got in, and for a moment we sat there, not saying anything. “I’m sorry,” he said.

I wanted to say, I’m not. But then I thought that if I wasn’t now, I would be. “Don’t be,” I said.

“You do something to me.”

“We do it to each other,” I said, and I knew that by saying it aloud we’d cut the taut line that ran between us, and it would fall.

Marse’s brother, Kyle, married his second wife in late August in the Church of the Little Flower, down the street from the Biltmore Hotel, and the reception was held in the Biltmore’s main ballroom. Kyle had been there the day Dennis and I had met, and we’d hired Kyle’s contracting firm when we’d built the addition on the house, and so I suppose he’d felt obligated to invite us even though we hadn’t seen each other socially in years. Or maybe Marse, who was in the wedding party, added our names so she would have someone to dish with.

Bette called while I was getting dressed for the wedding, and I answered the kitchen phone in my panty hose while fishing with one hand through my purse for lipstick. “Suzanne wants to move,” Bette said. I pictured her rolling her eyes, her tight-lipped grimace. “She thinks the house is too small. She wants a garage, for crying out loud.”

I loved her house, which is what I told her. “But if Suzanne’s not happy there . . . ,” I said.

“She’s concerned about the investment.” She exhaled loudly. “She says we need to put our money where it can grow.”

“It is growing.”

“She said something about closet space.”

“Well, she has a point there.”

“And she says she’s tired of Miami.”

I put down my purse. “What does that mean? Where does she want to go?”

“I shouldn’t have told you. I knew you’d panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” I said. She’d never mentioned moving away before, not even once. It had never occurred to me that this was even possible.

She said, “Maybe what I need is a new girlfriend,” but she didn’t sound convinced.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I guess I have a decision to make,” she said before hanging up. “I hate that.”

Later that night, I found myself huddled with Marse on a divan in the corner of the Biltmore ballroom, a plate of hors d’oeuvres between us. Marse was telling me about the bride, a management consultant with very fresh-looking breasts and heavy white-blond bangs. “She’s not quite as young as she looks,” she said. “Kyle was drunk at the rehearsal. He was saying all sorts of crap. He said women our age are bitter, so he steers clear. He said he hoped she didn’t get bitter. I told him it was inevitable.”

“We’re bitter?”

“I am, he said. Single women my age are. You get to a certain point, he said.”

“Men shouldn’t use that word.”

“No, they shouldn’t. I didn’t mention that there’s a word for men his age who live in condos and buy black leather furniture.”

“Loser?” I said, and she nodded. Kyle wasn’t exactly a loser, but he had grown untidy with age; his hair was unkempt, and he didn’t put much thought into his wardrobe. But he’d made some money and drove a very silly car—something sporty and expensive, which I assumed younger women liked. His first wife, Julia, was a potter with a studio in Coconut Grove. Over the years I’d bought several of her pieces as gifts. She was at the wedding, too, and from where Marse and I were sitting, I could see her having what seemed to be an engrossing conversation with a man I didn’t recognize. She wore a light peach tunic and pearly white slacks. “Julia looks great,” I said.

“Kyle said she couldn’t be happier for him.” Marse pulled at the top of her dress, smoothing it out. “I’m too old to be a bridesmaid. I’m too old to have other people pick out my clothes.” She wore a garnet-colored, strapless organza dress with a sheer, cream-colored slip that showed at the hem, and a ribbon of the same color around the waist. I thought the outfit was pretty, but it didn’t agree with Marse, who was more comfortable in a fitted suit