Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood (Sisterhood 4)

They had withstood this night for the most part, but what about the next one and the one after that?

She had the taste of him now. She had the feel of his body. They had said things you couldn’t forget and couldn’t take back. All the ordinary boundaries between them lay in ruins. What was going to keep them apart now? She feared they had both seen the place where they could have turned back and, knowingly, they had passed it by.

Leo looked surprised to see Lena at the door of his loft on Sunday morning. She was surprised to be there.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said.

“I wasn’t either.”

“I’m glad you did,” he added. He did look happy, and also uncertain. He was looking at her in a different way.

“I’m nervous,” she said honestly. “But fair is fair.”

His eyes on her were different. She couldn’t say why. “You are fair,” he said. “But you don’t have to do it.”

She smiled nervously. “Thanks.”

“Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.” She considered the state of her nervous system. “Maybe tea,” she mumbled, following him into the kitchen.

He put the kettle on and sat down. Northern light—artists’ light—fell all around them from the high windows.

“Where’s your mom?” Lena asked.

“She volunteers all day at our church,” Leo said. “I thought the privacy might make it easier.”

She nodded.

“But I understand if you don’t want to.”

“Okay.”

She sat and thought.

He looked at her, his elbow resting on the table, his chin in his hand. When she saw him looking, he smiled. She smiled back.

She thought of drinking her tea and going back home. She thought of staying here and taking off her clothes and letting Leo paint her. The second alternative didn’t seem possible, but in a strange way, neither did the first. She had the odd sense of pushing off the edge into unknown territory. She had already let her mind travel. There were possibilities now. It wasn’t enough to go back and forget. She wasn’t the forgetting type.

“I think we should try it,” she said.

“You do?”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

“So let’s.”

“If you’re uncomfortable, we’ll stop.”

She shrugged with a laugh. “I will be uncomfortable. We’d have to stop before we start.” She breathed deep. “But I think we should try it anyway.”

Leo’s bedroom was spacious and skylit. He had dragged a small ruby-colored couch into the center and draped a pale yellow sheet over it. His easel was folded in the corner.

“I was thinking of here,” he said a bit sheepishly. She could tell he’d made the effort to set it up more like a painting class, not just put her in his bed. “We could do it somewhere else, though.”

The colors glowed. The light dusted over the drapery in a beautiful way. She could almost see the painting. “No. This is good.”

He disappeared for a moment and came back with a robe, probably his mother’s. He handed it to her with a question on his face. Do you really want to do this? “I really won’t be upset with you if you don’t,” he said.

“I think I might be upset with me,” she said.

He nodded. “It’s just a painting.”

It wasn’t just a painting for her. She needed to do it anyway.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” he said.

“Not for long,” she joked nervously. It was like when the doctor left the room as you undressed and dressed again. As if the nakedness weren’t embarrassing if you could transition into it alone.

She took off her clothes quickly, before she could think about it and stop. Tank top and loose yoga pants and flip-flops in a pile on the floor. She was too nervous to fold them. She had dressed herself like she’d observed the models did—loose clothes for easy on and easy off. No weird red marks from a tight waistband or pinching bra strap. She’d thought to shave her stubbly parts so she was smooth and unremarkable.

She hurriedly propelled herself into the robe. To what end? she wondered. She just had to get right back out of it. But models always had the robe. Maybe it could be like Superman’s telephone booth. She’d go into the robe a terrified and prudish virgin and come out of it a seasoned artist’s model.

She took the robe off. She sat on the couch. She lay on the couch. She rearranged herself on the couch. Leo knocked on the door. “You ready?”

Every one of her muscles contracted. She felt her shoulders, neck, and head fuse into one ungraceful mass. Apparently she had come out of the robe the same way she had gone in.

“Ready,” she whimpered.

“Lena?”

“Ready,” she said a little louder. This had the quality of a bedroom farce. She wished she could find it funny.

He was nervous too. He didn’t want to affront or embarrass her by looking too quickly or too much. He occupied himself with his easel as though there weren’t a naked girl in the room. She said some things about how it was hot out, also pretending there wasn’t a naked girl in the room.

“Okay, my friend,” he said. His paintbrush was poised in his hand. He was ready to work. He looked at her through his painter’s eyes.

“Okay,” she breathed. This “my friend” business might be doing it for him, she thought sourly, but it wasn’t doing it for her.

He moved the easel to the left. He pushed it a couple of feet closer to her. He came out from behind it. “Head up a little,” he said, coming closer.

She did.

“Perfect.” He came closer still. He was looking now. “Okay, hand more like this.” He did it with his own hand rather than touch hers.

She obliged. She wished she could make her muscles soften a little.

“Beautiful,” he said. He kept studying her. “Legs a little…looser.”

She let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, right.”

He laughed too, but vaguely. She could tell he was starting to really think about painting now. Why hadn’t she been able to do that when it had been her turn to paint?

“Okay. Wow.” He went back to his canvas. He raised his eyebrows. She could tell he was excited. He was excited about his painting.

Bridget was crouched over her cereal bowl the next morning groggily spooning in the Frosted Flakes when she noticed the unfamiliar car pulling into the makeshift parking area. She didn’t make anything of it at first. Her mind was too full and unkempt as it was.

She dimly registered the slams of a few car doors and some stir at the other end of the tent. Slowly it made its way to her.

“Have you seen Peter?” Karina asked her.

She blinked and swallowed her mouthful of cereal. “Not this morning,” she said. Something about the question started the slow tick of alarm. At the far end of the tent an unfamiliar woman was talking to Alison. Then into Bridget’s view bounced a very small person, a little girl with a messy ponytail that had migrated to the side of her head. It was unusual to see a child here.

None of the pieces stuck together until she saw Alison marching toward her looking agitated, which doubled for excited in the case of Alison. “Do you know where Peter is? His wife and kids are here to surprise him.”

His wife and kids. They were here to surprise him. The ticking accelerated into a wild knocking. His wife and kids had popped out of their theoretical ether and appeared here. To surprise him.

For his birthday, Bridget realized, her thoughts bumping and scraping along. His secret birthday, which she had somehow believed belonged to her. It did not belong to her, she acknowledged with a messy ache in her chest. It belonged to them.

Peter’s wife and kids were far enough away and backed by flooding sunlight, so she couldn’t really see them.