CHAPTER 19
The first thing they didnotdo was go looking for Nathanael’s mother. Shaundra wasn’t even sure her mother-in-law knew they were coming. Nathanael had held his plans close to his chest.
They moved into a small but delightful hotel, where the owners were so solicitous that it almost felt like an intrusion.Would you like more fresh towels? Did you have any special order for dinner? Is the temperature control to your liking?It was typical small-town warmth, and Shaundra enjoyed it.
The next three days felt like a bubble suspended in time. They acted like tourists, seeking out fun as if they didn’t have any special reason for coming here other than to sample the best chicken wings in the state. It was almost as if they were soldiers determined to enjoy their last few days of safety and freedom before they were shipped off into the thick of war.
Nathanael wanted to take Benjamin to all his boyhood haunts. The park, the petting zoo, and the aquarium. Shaundra was just happy to tag along. Benjamin laughed and squealed at everything, tried ice cream and cotton candy for the first time, and seemed so delighted with everything that Shaundra couldn’t help but feel regret that he wouldn’t remember these experiences when he was older.
So she took lots of pictures, with Nathanael even mugging for the camera, and often Samia would huddle the three of them together so she could shoot quick video clips of Benjamin’s antics.
There was a kind of purity about those few days, a pseudo-happiness that Shaundra knew had to end, but she told herself that it was this ephemeral quality that made it so precious. She, Nathanael and Benjamin, happy together, smiling.
If only for another day.
In the afternoons, Samia would claim Benjamin, taking him into her arms and letting them know that she was handling things, and that they needed to go have fun. Shaundra wondered if the young woman had sensed the tension between her and Nathanael and had taken it upon herself to try to push them together.
The undercurrents were so palpable that anyone could sense them! Shaundra felt a rush of gratitude to Samia for being so thoughtful and sweet.
This evening, as they sat parked in the SUV near Rock Oyster Creek, Shaundra felt surprisingly relaxed in Nathanael’s company. He had bought them a couple of bottles of Buckminster Beer. He assured her that the local brew was on par with any major national brand. She had her doubts, but after a few sips, she had to admit that he was right.
“Not bad,” she commented, holding the bottle up to examine the label curiously.
“Not bad, you say? I’d say it’s top class.”
“Because the French know about beer,” she said with a joking sneer.
“First off, just because I’m French doesn’t mean that all I know about is wine and champagne. Secondly, please remember that my father was Belgian, and some pretty good beer came out of that neck of the woods.”
She took another sip. “Fine. I’ll grant you that.”
He nodded at the bottle she was holding. “That’s made by one of our local families. One of the wealthiest and most influential Black families in the town. The Buckminsters. They’ve been here for generations. Back in high school, it was the number one choice when we got together for keggers.”
She couldn’t help but ask, “What were you like in high school? Apart from scrawny.”
“Well, by then I’d started bulking up. I started eating better and working out, and by the time I was in senior year, ‘scrawny’ wasn’t a term you could apply to me. Or dare to.”
“Did you have a lot of friends?”
“Not many. I was quiet, maybe a little angry and rebellious. But the few I had, this was one of our favorite hangout spots. We’d come here, knock back a few Bucks, skinny dip.”
She laughed out loud in surprise. “Skinny dip? You?”
He held up his own dark bottle. “You’d be surprised what a teenager is capable of once he has a few of these under his belt.”
The idea of a man as level-headed as Nathanael being reckless and boozy was almost too much for her to wrap her head around. “I don’t believe you.”
“Well, fortunately, my generation didn’t have access to phone-cameras as this one is, so most of those memories are safely in my head. Where they will remain, thank God.”
Shaundra put her bottle down in the holder between them, enjoying the sight of a nostalgic smile hovering around Nathanael’s lips. For a moment, she could imagine what he looked like as a teenager. Handsome, but not yet stepping into the dark, mature good looks of the man before her. She wondered if he’d worn braces, or if the smooth, neatly trimmed beard he wore now had first seen the light of day as a scraggly thatch of growth on his teenage chin.
She wondered aloud. “You were an angry teen? Why?”
Nathanael stopped smiling, then carefully placed his bottle in the holder next to hers.
Uh-oh,she thought.I’ve gone and ruined everything.What a terrible time for an attack of foot-in-mouth disease.
Instead of answering, he leaned over the gap between the seats, cupping her head in one hand as he kissed her. The pressure of his mouth took her by surprise. When was the last time he’d kissed her? Weeks ago, in that Japanese love hotel?