Chapter 50
“Tonight’s good.” Gavin checks his watch again, and realizes he has to get moving nowif he doesn’t want to run late. “Look, Mare, I have to get going. How about I stop by at what, five thirty? Six o’clock?”
Her voice is warm and inviting in his ear. “See you then.” 38
Monday evening after his last class, Gavin texts Brody a quick message—love u, will talk later—then heads over to Marian’s. He’s been looking forward to her spaghetti all day; funny how he doesn’t think about it for months and then, after she mentioned it, he can’t get it out of his mind. She’s a traditionalist when it comes to pasta. No twists or shells or fancy little things with hard to pronounce Italian names for her. It’s thin spaghetti and nothing else. When Gavin lived with her, he once made the mistake of buying fettuccine noodles instead and she refused to use them. “I’m not making fettuccine alfredo,” she argued. “I’m making spaghetti. The name of the dish is the type of pasta you use.”
“Nonsense,” Gavin argued. “You don’t call it angel hair if you use angel hair pasta.”
“I don’t use angel hair pasta,” Marian said, “or fettuccine, for that matter. I use spaghetti. If you want to settle for fettuccine with marinara sauce, fine. But I had my heart set on spaghetti.”
Now after thinking about it all day, Gavin does, too.
It’s only quarter after five when he pulls into Marian’s driveway. She likes to eat at six, so he’ll have some time to spend with Evie before dinner. If he knows his daughter, this means he’ll sit on the living room couch while she serenades him with a medley of songs from her favorite Disney movies. Sometimes she asks him to name the movies the songs are from, as if he knows. They all sound the same to him, and he doesn’t always get the title of the movie right. “Ariel?” he asked once.
Evie sighed, exasperated at his ignorance. “Daaaddy! Ariel’s the name of the mermaid, not the movie.”
His response was simple. “How am I supposed to know?”
Now he knocks on the front door and waits to hear the thudding of Evie’s shoes on the wooden foyer floor inside. Instead he hears the steady click, clickof heels, then the door is unlocked and flung wide. Marian stands there wearing a low-cut, hip-hugging black dress that accentuates her curves and makes her pale skin look creamy. She juts out one hip, her hand propped so Gavin can see the red-tipped nails. Her hair is curled and swept back, her makeup is flawless, and from the sound her legs make when they swish together, Gavin suspects she’s wearing pantyhose with those open-toe black heels. Pantyhose mean business, in Marian’s mind. A girl like Evie must wear opaque tights to hide everything under her dress from view, but a woman wears pantyhose for one reason, and one reason only.
To feel sexy.
“Um, hey.” Gavin glances around Marian into the house, but Evie is nowhere in sight. “It’s tonight, right?”
“Gavin, come in!” With a smile, Marian leans toward him, a dangerous move in such a low dress. Her breasts strain against the fabric, threatening to overspill. She pats a hand over her décolletage in a poor attempt at modesty, but her eyes say she wants him to take a good look at what she has to offer. “Of courseit’s tonight, my dear. The pasta’s boiling. There’s salad, and bread, and wine! Can I pour you a glass?”
Gavin lets her lead him into the house. As the door shuts behind him, he tries to ignore the feeling of entrapment that comes over him. “Where’s Evie?” he asks.
With a wave of her hand, Marian dismisses the question. “Oh, she’s at my mother’s. I have a Zinfandel open, but there’s a bottle of Barbera in the rack if you want that, instead.”
“I’m fine.” Gavin watches her sashay towards the kitchen, her hips twitching in that tight little dress she wears. Something doesn’t seem right. “I thought you wanted all of us to get together for dinner. But if Evie isn’t here…”
Marian turns before entering the kitchen and leans against the doorway. “Gavin, please! I wanted you here so I could have you all to myself.”
Uh-oh.
Gavin holds up both hands, as if that will stop whatever it is she might have in mind. “Wait. What? Why?”
Slowly Marian saunters back, lower lip pouting out the same way Evie’s does when there’s something she wants from Gavin. But it doesn’t always work with his daughter, and it sure as hell won’t work with her mother.
“I’ve missed you, is all,” Marian purrs as she reaches out to run a hand down his arm. He twitches away and steps back. She lowers her voice and drops her eyelids seductively. “I miss us. Don’t you?”
When she reaches out for him again, he slaps her hand away. “I’m seeing someone, Marian. Someone I love very much.”
Her face twists in sudden anger. “Brody,” she spits, as if the name is anathema to her. “What’s he got that I don’t have? Oh, right. A dick.”
She grabs her crotch and thrusts into her palm, a vulgar gesture made all the uglier by her beauty. Gavin sighs, too tired to fight any longer. “Marian, please. I’m not—“
“Not what?” she snaps. “Not attracted to me? Not in lovewith me? Well, fuck you, mister! Do you know how hard it is to raise your daughter day in and day out? She wears me down, Gavin! I don’t have a life outside this house! And you—you get to just fuck whoever the hell you want, leading the perfect life, so…so unattached. So juvenile. Where’s that leave me, huh? When do I get a chance to have some fun for once? I’m still young, you know!”
“You’re a gorgeous woman,” Gavin assures her. “Any man would be lucky to fall for you. Any man but me.”
She slaps him. It’s so unexpected a move that he doesn’t pull away, and his cheek stings a second before the sound of her palm striking his face smacks his ears. “Fuck you,” she growls again. There are tears in her eyes, and one trickles through her eyeliner to course a broken path down her jaw.