Secrets in Summer(105)

She wanted to collapse on the deck and die.

She continued to walk, robot-like, toward Jordan.

“Oh, honey,” Jordan said, putting an arm around Darcy and swiveling her so they both faced the ocean as she talked. “I was trying to warn you.”

Darcy choked out a few words. “Have you—has Nash?”

“I haven’t seen Nash with her anywhere before now. I don’t think he’s been seeing her or I’d know through the grapevine. I don’t think they’re a thing yet, Darcy.” Jordan squeezed Darcy’s arm. “Come on. Buck up. Don’t let him see you looking all sad and desperate.”

“I can’t stay here.”

“Yes, you can. Stick with me. Slap a smile on your face. They’re bringing out the cake any minute now. It’s early, I know, for the cake, but everyone here has to work tomorrow, so it’s not going to be one of our normal drunken orgies.”

“I’ll leave when they bring the cake out.”

“Okay, fine, but until then you’ve got to fake having fun. At least look as if you’re glad you’re alive.”

“I’m not sure I am.”

“Suck it up. It’s not the end of the world.”

Feeling was returning to her fingers, and the shock was draining away from her mind, replaced by a dark, rational, and overwhelming grief. “I think I really messed up, Jordan.”

“That’s not for you to decide right at this moment in time, Darcy. What will people think if you go all pathetic and wretched at a party?”

“You know what, Jordan? I don’t care what people think. Here, please take this.”

Darcy handed her untouched glass of water to her friend. Without another word, because she had no strength to speak another word, Darcy walked across the deck to the far end and went down the outside steps to the lawn. She heard Jordan hiss “Darcy!” but didn’t turn back. She had been hit by lightning. A tree had fallen on her life. A tsunami raced toward her, its towering waves threatening to crash down on her, and all she could think of was getting away.

She took off her stilettos and carried them as she ran to her car. Once inside the relative privacy of her Jeep, she tossed her shoes and small party purse on the seat, stabbed the key in the ignition, and drove away from the house, the party, the doorway where Nash leaned possessively over beautiful little young Kate. She turned onto the Surfside Road and drove to the parking lot overlooking the Atlantic. The beach was still crowded with swimmers, bodysurfers, and groups of friends sharing seaside cocktails and munchies. She wanted to be on the beach, but if she went down to the ocean and screamed like she felt like screaming, she’d frighten everyone and probably get hauled off in a police car.

So she drove to the far end of the rutted dirt road and parked in front of a house with no lights on and no sign of life. She kept her windows rolled up as she buried her face in her hands and wept.

—

Darkness fell. Darcy watched the beachcombers walk up the sandy hill, carrying coolers, beach umbrellas and chairs, sleepy children. She gazed numbly at these fortunate people tucking kids into car seats, reminding each other to fasten their seatbelts, and finally hitting the headlights that flashed over Darcy’s Jeep as they turned in the lot and drove back toward town.

She had cried herself out. She had thought this all through. Nash wouldn’t date a sweet young woman like Kate on any kind of a whim. He wasn’t a frivolous man. Nash was done with Darcy. He had moved on.

Still, she could not rid herself of the hope that she was being overdramatic. She had dated Nash for barely three months. Much too brief a time for her to consider him the man she’d spend her life with, right? After all, she’d married Boyz after knowing him for only five months, and look how that had turned out. Jordan, on the other hand, had known Lyle all her life, had been his girlfriend in high school, and then hadn’t seen him for years when he was in the military. They certainly had not rushed to the altar, and now their marriage was solid.

Was it possible, Darcy wondered, that she’d inherited some of her mother’s tendency to rush into romance? It was a special thrill, falling in love—it was exciting, turning all one’s senses to high. That first spark, that first sidelong glance, the first phone call, the first kiss…the first time making love. All engraved in the memory and illuminated by the neon lights of infatuation.

But staying in love with one person for a lifetime? Maybe Darcy simply wasn’t capable of that. After all, she had kissed Clive. And if it had been out of sympathy and kindness, it had also been from desire. From the moment she set eyes on Clive, she’d wanted him to want her. And if that was purely a selfish egotistical urge, it came from her own body, without any thought or decision. She looked at him; she was…interested in him. She admired him, and she desired him. Was there ever any wisdom in desire?