He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried—and he didn’t try. He closed the tiny distance between them and kissed her. It was the kind of kiss he’d forgotten about. Whispering her name, he moved his right hand down her slick, naked back and reached around for her breast. He’d barely felt the full swell of it when she eased away from him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking as pale and shaken as he felt. “I need to go.”
“There’s something between us,” he said. The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was going to say.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
They stared at each other. He had the strange sensation that he was losing something of value.
Finally, she climbed out of the hot tub, went into the house, and retrieved her clothes. Without even bothering to say good-bye, she left him.
He sat there a long time, alone, staring out at nothing.
JULIA DREAMT OF MAX ALL NIGHT. SHE WAS SO CAUGHT IN THE WEB that when she woke, it took her a second to realize that someone was knocking on the bedroom door.
It sounded like an advancing army.
She sat up in bed. There was no army at the door.
It was, instead, one small, determined girl, standing by the closed door.
Julia smiled. This was what mattered, not some near sexual encounter. “I’d say someone wants to go outside again.” She swung her legs out of bed and stood up.
After finishing her bathroom routine, she came back out into the bedroom, dressed now in a pair of faded jeans and an old gray sweatshirt.
Alice stamped her foot and punched the door, grunting for emphasis.
Julia walked casually toward their worktable, where all the books and blocks and dolls were spread out. There, she sat down and put her feet on the table. “If a girl wanted to go outside, she should use her words.”
Alice frowned and hit the door again.
“It won’t work, Alice. You see, now I know you can talk.” She got up and went to the window, pointing at the yard that was just beginning to turn pink with the dawn. “Outside.” She said it over and over again, then went to Alice and took the girl’s hand, leading her to the bathroom.
She pointed at herself in the mirror. “Ju-li-a,” she said. “Can you say that? Ju-li-a.”
“Her,” Alice whispered.
Julia’s heart did a little flip at the voice, whisper-soft and hesitant as it was. “Ju-li-a,” she said again, pressing a hand to her own chest. “Ju-lia.”
She saw when Alice understood. The child made a little sound of discovery; her mouth formed an O. “Jew-lee.”
Julia grinned. This was how people must feel when they scaled Everest without oxygen. Light-headed and giddy with triumph. “Yes. Yes. Julia.” Now she pointed at Alice’s reflection in the mirror. “The ya sound is hard to make, isn’t it? Now, who are you?” She touched Alice’s chest, just as she’d touched her own.
Alice’s frown deepened. “Girl?”
“Yes! Yes! You’re a girl.” She touched Alice’s chest again. “Who are you? Julia. Me. And you?”
“Girl,” she said again, her frown turning into a scowl.
“Do you know your name, little one?”
This time there was no answer at all. Alice waited a long moment, still frowning, then thumped the door with her fist again.
Julia couldn’t help laughing at that. “You might not have much of a vocabulary, kiddo, but you know what you want and you learn fast. Okay. Let’s go outside.”
WHAT HAD BEGUN AS A CRISP, CLEAR MORNING WAS SLOWLY CHANGING into an ominous afternoon. Heavy gray clouds bumped into one another and formed a mass that looked like steel wool. The pale sun that had lured Max out to the mountains on this cold autumn day had all but vanished. Every now and again a beam of light would poke through the clouds, but in the last hour even those moments of gold had become infrequent.
Soon, it would rain.