Hugo & Rose (24 page)

But then there was her “other mind.” Source of the deep, rising syrupy feeling that came with Hugo's kiss. The whisperer of “what if.” The curious wonderer who reminded Rose that she had known Hugo all her life. Who needled her to find out
Why him? Why you? Why now? Why?

Rose hated that mind. Hated herself. Wished for the conviction of Josh, always so sure.

But then there was the look on Hugo's face. This was all her fault. She owed it to him, this promise. This final good-bye.

Rose's minds warred as she prepared to go see Hugo for the last time. One driving her to shave her legs and put on a skirt, but the other urging her to skip the makeup. One making her tell the Widow Delvecchio when dropping off Penny that she would only be a few hours, the other keeping her from naming a specific time at which she would be back. One who told her even as she exited the highway into Hemsford that she could turn around, go home, never see him again.

And the other who shrugged and said,
Why not? You've already come all this way.

It was this mind that pushed her out of her parked car and onto Hugo's front porch.

*   *   *

Hugo's house was a mess.

Though, to be truthful, “mess” was a kind word for it. Mess implies a kind of homey clutter. Papers that need to be filed. Shoes that need to be put away. Beds that need to be made.

But as Rose sat on his couch, perched uncomfortably on the edge, the disorder around her had none of the casual, “get around to it” feel of a “mess.” Clothes were everywhere. A shirt draped over the couch. Pants caught under the front door. Used plates and glasses stacked in the sink. She resisted the urge to start picking up. Jesus, what the hell had happened here?

She had.

She was the reason Hugo's life was falling apart.
Rose felt this with a deep certainty.

Hugo had answered the door quickly, swinging it open before she had even landed the first knock. He had smiled, relieved she had come. As she stepped inside, Rose noticed his skin looked different from the way it had earlier in the morning light of her backyard.

It looked gray.

He offered her a glass of water. Rose nodded, saying nothing as she took in the systematic decay that was his living room. He motioned for her to sit on the one clear surface in the center of the couch.

So she sat and she looked and she listened: The sound of the faucet squeaking on. The ringing clank-clank of water pressure knocking plates in the sink against one another. The change in the sound as he moved something under the stream. Then the rising ring of a cup filling.

He returned, pained smile, his fist clamped around a still damp mug. “Sorry. I had to clean a glass.”

Rose nodded. She still hadn't said anything. She didn't think she would be able to. She felt …
flayed.
Raw. As though she'd been stripped of her skin and everything she was experiencing was right on the exposure of her nerves.

“Rose?” He still held out the cup.

She took it and he sat on the couch, his weight displacing the air in the cushions for a moment and lifting her. Rocking her.

Rose felt a word bubble up. “Hugo—”

“They fired me.”

She didn't understand. His smile was gone. He was staring at the mug in her hands, his eyebrows furrowed.

“At work. They fired me.”

Rose's brain finally computed the information Hugo had given her. She had been expecting something else, so it had taken a moment to get it.
Hugo had lost his job.
Her brain had no idea how to handle what it had been anticipating, but
this, this loss of employment
 … this had precedent, appropriate responses. It was almost a relief to know for a moment what to do.
Comfort. Sympathy.

“Oh, Hugo … I'm so sorry.”

He swallowed. Shook his head. “It … it's not a big deal. I just wanted you to know.” He took a shallow breath and shifted. Rose felt his movement through the cushion. His gravity changing her position. He inhaled sharply. “It's just sometimes I feel like
this part
is the dream, and the other … that that's who I really am.”

His eyes grew glassy with unshed tears, and he buried his face in his hands.

Rose had never seen Hugo cry. On the island he was always calm, happy, serious when the occasion called for it. But never had she seen him broken like this.

Her heart ached for him. His back shuddered like Adam's. A little boy.

“Oh, Hugo.” Instinctively, she reached out and touched his shoulder.

He lifted his head, thumbed an errant tear from the corner of his eye. “That's the problem. To everyone else I'm someone else. I'm David. I'm only Hugo to
you.
”

He leaned toward her, wrapping her in a hug. Rose felt the scratch of his whiskers against her neck. His hot face pressing against her hair and scalp. His arms over hers, so different from Josh's—their shorter length intensifying the angle. Making his grip on her stronger.

“Only you know how I really am. Who I really am.” His chest vibrated against her.

Rose let herself lean into him. Her chin cupping over his shoulder.

Caramel. He smells of caramel.

He whispered, breath dancing in her hair, “And I'm the only person who knows who you really are.”

Rose heard a small squeak come from somewhere inside her.

“I love you, Rose.”

He turned his head, his nose sweeping an arc until it was only an inch from hers.

Rose held her breath. Her mind cleared of the images of brains in jars, swept away by another familiar phrase.
Of what consequence are the dreams of housewives?…

And then he was kissing her.

It was different from the dream. His lips were rougher, their texture different beneath that foreign shelf of whiskers under his nose. But Rose felt that blooming within herself nonetheless, that rising syrup of a feeling within.

Yes.

Rose parted her lips and began to kiss him back. Hugo pressed her into the couch, moving his torso up against hers. Rose could feel his heat on top of her. His hands were suddenly everywhere.

Yes.

Hugo clung to her, a lifeline, even as his mouth and hands struggled to possess her. “I need you. I need you.”

And Rose wanted him to take whatever would make him feel better, whatever would make them both feel better. Their clutching became desperate, almost flailing.

“Do it.”

Rose had said it, her voice a desperate whine.

Suddenly Hugo was seizing her hips, yanking them forward on the couch. He fell forward onto her, burying his face into the space between her breasts, leaving sweaty trails on her shirt. His hands left her body to fumble at his fly. Rose pulled up her skirt and yanked her panties to the side.

“I've thought … about this…” His breath was a mutter, his weight sinking into her. “You … you feel like home.” Rose held him tightly as he trembled, sinking her hips into him, traces of his kisses drying on her skin.

Home. Yes, he was right. This was
home
.

Then Rose reached down. She touched him, brought him toward herself.

But he remained soft in spite of the urgency of the rest of his body.

“I'm sorry, I—I don't … I don't know why…”

She heard the frustration in his voice. The turmoil. And she knew.

“It's okay. It's okay, Hugo.” But he shook his head, turning away. Ashamed.
He's a broken boy
, she thought.
My poor, sweet man.
Rose slid off to comfort him. “No. No.” Kissing his face. “No. No. No.”

She wrapped her hands around his head, pulling him into her chest. “No. It's not supposed to be … this isn't
how
we belong.”

*   *   *

He had a bottle of expired sleeping pills in his medicine cabinet. They were fifteen months past the “use by” date printed on the label, and Hugo did not remember buying them.

They took them anyway.

The pills had been Rose's idea. Hugo had led her to his bedroom. She had pulled the coverlet up over his unmade bed and rumpled pillows. There they had tried to fall asleep, the backs of their hands touching, their eyes gazing across the expanse of inexpensive cotton.

But neither had been able to slip off consciousness unaided.

As they lay in the bed, Rose felt things bubble up through the sweet, syrupy feeling of Hugo's affection. Her obligations. Her responsibilities. Josh. The kids.
What was she doing, anyway? In bed with a man who was not her husband?

Rose tried to put out these impurities. To drown them in the honey of her desire for Hugo. She
wanted
this, she wanted to
know what it would be like.

And besides,
it was just sleep.

She had stopped just shy of any
real
infidelity. What haunted her was the possibility that she would have to think of herself as an unfaithful wife. A few minutes more and she would have been denied that … but this …

Well really … this was just a nap.

But regardless of these mental acrobatics, thoughts of her husband continued to bubble up through the syrup of desire, keeping her from sleep.

Hugo, too, seemed to be struggling, his eyes bright.

When Rose asked if he had any sleep aids, she did so shyly … almost the way one would ask about a condom. Hugo nodded quietly and the two of them went to his bathroom.

There was a moment, before Hugo swung open the mirrored medicine cabinet, when Rose saw both herself and Hugo standing together at the sink.

A moving picture framed in stainless steel.

Hugo and Rose.

But they were the wrong versions of themselves. Both fat. Too old to be beautiful. Wrinkled. Hugo's shirt unfashionable and cheap. Rose's breasts and belly too saggy under the fabric of her shirt.

She felt herself pushing at the image, kicking away to swim toward the dream. To who they really
were
.

She was relieved when the mirror finished its arc, revealing its contents, hiding their images from them.

The bottle was directly in the center of the chest. A sun to the solar system of Hugo's deodorants and aftershaves.

“I think these were my wife's,” he said, pulling them out. “I've never had a problem falling asleep.”

Mention of Hugo's long absent wife brought Josh bubbling up through Rose's mind. Rose shook it off. She wanted to feel like
herself …
like her
real self
. She snatched the bottle out of his hand as he read the expiration date.

“It'll be fine,” she said, squeezing off the childproof cap. She shook two pills into her palm. “Open your mouth,” she commanded him.

Rose tried not to think about how similar she sounded to when she gave medicine to her sons.

But Hugo complied. A good little boy.

Rose placed the pill in the center of his tongue. A communion.

They each took sips of water from the mug he had washed for her and went back to his bed.

Despite their expiration date, the pills were potent.

 

sixteen

They were in the Blanket Pavilion. Rose could hear the snapping of its sheet walls against breezes of the island. She could feel the sand shifting under her body, yielding and warm.

She could also feel Hugo's hands.

Hugo's hands on her firm breasts. On her strong thighs. On her tucked waist.

Rose moaned as his kisses left warm traces on the skin of her chest. This is what it should be like.
This. This.

She kissed his neck, wrapping her legs around his torso. She heard his breath shudder.
This.

They were on Hugo's bed.
An image of what they must look like popped into her mind. Two middle-aged bodies, prone on the covers of an old mattress, breathing deeply. In unison.

They were there. But they were also
here.
Together in both places.

This. This.

Here Hugo did not cry. Here there was no desperation in his hands. He was not clutching at her, seeking comfort. His grip was firm, not grasping.

Rose arched her back to press closer to him.

Oh, God, why had they never done this before? This was so nice, so right.

Hugo and Rose.

Hugo shifted his hips away from her, his knees making furrows in the sand. It was almost time. Rose closed her eyes.

Oh please. Yes. This. This.

She felt his arms snake up beneath her shoulders. His fingers wrapped themselves in her hair, twisting gently against the roots. His mouth pushed into hers, lips soft but insistent.

This.

There was a sudden shift in the light. A darkness falling over the diffuse walls of the Pavilion. The change registered through Rose's shuttered eyelids. Something was wrong.

She opened her eyes.

The Pavilion was gone. Hugo's face was still pressed up against hers in a kiss, but beyond it she could just make out the painted grid of a cinder-block wall. Where the hell were they?

“Hugo?”

He pulled away from her, alerted by the alarm in her voice. As he pulled back Rose caught a glimpse of her hair, still twisted in his hands. It was blond, straight. The tacky shade chosen by women who don't care about looking natural.

Hugo's eyes went wide when he saw her. “Summer Cameron.”

“What?”

“Rose, is that you?”

“Of course it's me.”

“You don't look like you.”

He was right. Rose looked down at her body. It
was
different. More petite. Her blond hair trailed over a slouchy sweater worn over a spandex miniskirt … and beneath that—

“Am I wearing anklets with heels?”