than he is,” he said. “He seems half asleep most of the time. And there’s something a little slippery about him. I never can figure out what he’s really thinking. Anyway, the single life suits you. You’re looking well.”
“Thanks.” But he was lying. She’d aged ten years in the months since Lawrence had departed. “Want to open the wine?” They went into the kitchen, and she passed him the corkscrew and a couple of glasses. She’d cooked a stroganoff with beef, bacon, white wine, sour cream. The rice was done. She turned on the burner under the frozen peas. He stuck his nose into the stroganoff pot. “Smells great.”
“Sorry it’s not turkey.”
“I don’t even like turkey. How did we ever get stuck with that for Thanksgiving? Did you know that the Pilgrims ate swans?”
“I’m glad we don’t. By the way, I have no appetizer. We’ll just eat, okay?”
“Are you apologizing?”
“No. Yes.” She stood over the stove, about to dish up the food, made a sudden movement, and knocked her wineglass to the floor. The glass shattered, and red wine splashed over his shoes and her bare feet.
“Don’t move,” he said. He put his arms around her and lifted her away from the shards and set her down. He swept up, grabbed a sponge and paper towels and mopped up. “There might still be some. You’d better get shoes.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“That’s not a pumpkin pie I see …”
“It is.”
“You made it? I can’t remember when I last had pumpkin pie.” They sat down at the table. Conversation was halting, awkward. Not knowing what else to talk about, she asked how he’d come to Botswana.
“I was a religious nut,” he said, smiling.
“As in converting the pagan masses?”
“More or less. I was sent out here for two years, in the grand missionary tradition, with a small band of believers.” He took a gulp of wine.
“And?”
“And after two months, I thought, I don’t even like these people. And this whole concept of salvation. Suddenly it made no sense. So I bailed and found a job with Shell Oil. I’ve been here ever since. Strange isn’t it, the way things can change overnight?”
“Yes.”
“So what about you?” he asked. “Have you moved on?”
She’d always thought of Peter as a bit of a galoot, but it wasn’t true. He was more like a seatmate on a Greyhound bus who has kind eyes and is willing to listen. It surprised her.
“Not really. But I will in time.” They finished up the first course, and she poured him coffee and gave him a slab of pie.
“So what happened?” he asked.
“I don’t really know how to explain it. Everything revolved around Lawrence and his work. I became bored, inattentive. His attentions turned elsewhere … I guess you’d say it was mutual, although it didn’t feel like it at the time.”
“Well, let me say it—I never really liked the guy. It’s hard to put a finger on. You’ll be grateful for this someday. Great pie, by the way.”
“Are you with someone, Peter?”
“No, I’ve tried. Both sexes. It’s not going to happen in this lifetime.”
“Maybe that’ll change.”
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t think I’m cut out for it either,” she said. She felt no sparks with Peter, doubted that she’d ever feel that way again.
“You’ll have a happy life and be better for this.”
“You’re sweet to say so.”
“I mean it.” He got up to go shortly after that. “I’m on the road early tomorrow. Can I help with the dishes?”
She thanked him and told him no. His face when he bent to kiss her good night contained a deep, wide loneliness. He thanked her, and she shut the door, thinking of something she’d read in a Philip Larkin poem she’d taken out of the library: how in everyone there sleeps a life unlived as it might be lived if one were loved.
She went to the sink and soaped up the dishes. A life as it might be lived if one were loved. She thought of Lawrence’s pasted on smile, his eagerness to get away. And his step toward her, and his surprisingly tender, I’m sorry, Alice. Once upon a time, she would have said there was nothing in her life she really regretted. Now, she wouldn’t say that, but what she regretted was hard to name. Not the years with Lawrence, not even the end. It was not being awake enough: being half asleep when she met him, half asleep when she read his distant letters. He’d asked so little of her, and she’d