She said, “He’s a good teacher.”
They seemed more relaxed with each other. He wasn’t staring at her anymore and she couldn’t stop talking about the feeling of clay spinning between her hands. Maybe I’d been wrong to think they’d been flirting. Besides, Filomena was too smart to fall for a married man.
Morelli stood up and walked to the balcony door. “I’m going out for a smoke.”
Filomena picked at the clay under her fingernails, brushed the dust off her skirt, cleared her throat, and followed him outside.
“Love is in the air,” said Leslie.
I said, “But he’s married!”
She shrugged. “The wife is crazy as a bedbug—a real nightmare. They’ve been separated for years but he won’t divorce her because of the little boy. Bob is the last of a dying breed—a true gentleman.”
I couldn’t believe she was talking about adultery as if it was no big deal. As if Filomena wouldn’t get her heart broken—or worse.
When they came inside, I said it was time we got back to the lodge.
Instead of answering me, Filomena turned to Morelli, who looked at his watch and said, “I have to go into town to make the telephone call I told you about.”
Then she said, “Okay, Addie, let’s go.”
Filomena was silent on the way back so I rattled on about what it was like wearing pants and my conversation with Leslie about college. “I know you don’t like her,” I said, “but she’s not such a bad egg.”
When we got to the porch, Filomena stopped before we went inside and said she was going back later. “And tomorrow, too. I don’t need another hike through Dogtown.”
But the next day wasn’t a hike; it was a schooner sail around Cape Ann and we had talked about how much fun that would be.
Filomena just shrugged.
“He’s married,” I said.
“What does that have to do with me studying with him?”
I wanted to shake her and tell her not to be a fool and that it was going to end badly. I wanted to say, do you think he really cares about your pottery? Why can’t you see he’s a wolf, too, just like Harold Weeks?
But all of that stayed inside my head. What I said—and it came out sounding prudish and angry—was “What are you going to tell Miss Case?”
Her answer was just as chilly. “I am not going to miss the chance to learn from a master.”
It was awful. We never talked to each other like that, so I tried to lighten things up. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt that the teacher looks like Rudolph Valentino.”
Filomena didn’t think it was funny. “I know what I’m doing.”
—
I didn’t see much of her for the rest of the week. She left before breakfast and didn’t get back until right before the door was locked. There was one night she didn’t come back at all. I worried about her but mostly I was mad.
I had been looking forward to staying up late and talking—and so had she. We never ran out of conversation, and even when we talked about other people, it was never gossip. I always felt I understood myself better after we spent time together. And the way she laughed at my wisecracks and thanked me for my opinions made me think maybe I was as smart and funny as she said I was.
But she had chosen to be with Morelli instead of me.
I suppose I was more hurt than angry, but I walked around in such a foul mood, Irene handed me a bottle of Lydia Pinkham’s and said, “I figure you’re either constipated or you have cramps.”
“You don’t think this stuff works, do you?” I asked.
“Whatever’s bothering you, there’s enough spirits in there to cheer you up.”
I decided not to waste the rest of my vacation stewing about Filomena and threw myself into everything: lawn tennis, croquet, cards, charades, you name it. The only thing I didn’t do was go to the dance; I told everyone I had a terrible headache that night.