IN HIS TOWNHOUSE, CARTER HUNG UP THE PHONE. THE THREE-LEGGED orange cat he called Triad leaped into his lap. He sat, scratching the cat absently between the ears and wishing he'd been able to talk to Mac. Even just for a minute. If he had, he wouldn't be sitting here, thinking about her, instead of doing his Sunday chores.
He had laundry to deal with, tomorrow's lesson plans to review. More papers to grade, and the story outlines from his Creative Writing class to read and approve. He hadn't finished his paper on "Shakespeare's Women: The Duality." Or given enough attention to the short story he had in the works.
Then he was expected for Sunday dinner at his parents'.
He was mooning over her, and realizing it didn't seem to make a damn bit of difference.
"Laundry first," he told the cat, and poured Triad onto the chair as he himself vacated it. He put the first load in the washer in the claustrophobic little laundry room off his kitchen. He started to make himself a cup of tea, then scowled.
"I can have coffee if I want. There's no law that says I can't have a damn cup of coffee in the afternoon." He brewed it with a kind of defiance that made him feel foolish even though no one was there to see it. While his clothes washed, he took the coffee back upstairs to the smaller of the two bedrooms, outfitted as his office.
He began grading the papers, and sighed over the C minus he was forced to give one of his brightest-and laziest-students. He felt a conference coming on. No point in putting it off, he decided, and wrote See me after class under the grade.
When the timer he'd set signaled, he went back down to put the wet clothes in the dryer, load a second batch in the washer.
Back at his desk, he evaluated outlines. He made comments, suggestions, corrections. Using his red pencil he added words of praise and advice. He loved this kind of work-seeing how his students used their minds, organized thoughts, created their worlds.
He finished the work, and the laundry, and still had more than an hour to kill before he needed to leave for dinner.
Casually, he began to search for recipes on the Internet.
It didn't mean he'd ask her over for dinner. It was just an in case sort of thing. If he lost his mind and actually followed Bob's advice, it would be good to have a plan.
An outline, so to speak.
Nothing too fancy or complicated, he thought, as that would be a disaster. But not too basic or ordinary. If you were going to cook for a woman, shouldn't you make more of an effort than tossing something in the microwave?
He printed out a few possibilities, and made notes on potential menus. And wines. She liked wine. He didn't know anything about wine, but he could learn. He put everything in a file.
He'd probably ask her to the movies anyway. The standard movie date, followed by pizza. Casual, no pressure or expectations. That was what he'd most likely do, he thought as he walked out of the office into his bedroom to change into a fresh shirt.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to pick up some candles, maybe some flowers. He glanced around the room, and imagined her there. In candlelight. Imagined lowering her to the bed, feeling her move under him. Watching her face, the light shimmering over it, as he touched her. Tasted her.
"Oh boy."
After a calming breath, Carter stared down at the cat who stared up at him. "She's right. Sex is a whopper."
THE HOUSE ON CHESTNUT LANE WITH ITS BIG YARD AND OLD trees had been one of the reasons Carter had given up his position at Yale. He'd missed it-the blue shutters and white clapboard, the sturdy porch and tall dormers-and the people who lived inside it.
He couldn't say he came to the house any more often now than when he'd lived and worked in New Haven. But he found contentment knowing he could drop by if the mood struck. He stepped in, turned out of the foyer to glance into the big parlor where Chauncy, the family cocker spaniel, curled on the sofa.
He wasn't allowed on the furniture, and knew it, so his sheepish expression and hopefully thumping tail were pleas for silence.
"I didn't see a thing," Carter whispered, and continued on toward the great room, and the noise. He smelled his mother's Yankee pot roast, heard his younger sister's laugh, followed by multiple male shouts and curses.
The game, he concluded, was on.
He stopped at the entryway to study the tableau. His mother, raw-boned, sturdy as New England bedrock, stirred something on the stove while Sherry leaned on the counter beside her talking a mile a minute and gesturing with a glass of wine. His older sister, Diane, stood with her hands fisted on her hips, watching through the wall of windows. He could see her two kids bundled to the eyeballs, riding a couple of colorful sled disks down the slope of the backyard.
His father, his brother-in-law, and Nick continued to shout at the action on the TV on the other side of the breakfast counter. Since football either gave him a headache or put him to sleep, Carter chose the girls' side of the room and came up on his mother from behind to lean down and kiss the top of her head.