Chapter 3
The valet brought the car around and left it running under the awning. Rain had started again, light and warm, spotting the windshield. Graham stood on the passenger side with his hand on the roof and didn't open the door. I could see his gold band pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He wasn't putting it on.
I walked around to the driver's side and got in. That was the choice. He stared at me through the glass for a second, then opened the passenger door and slid in. He didn't say anything about me driving. He just pulled the door shut and buckled his seatbelt and looked straight ahead.
I pulled out onto Central Avenue. The wipers were on low. Neon dragged across the wet street in long smears. I kept both hands on the wheel because my left hand felt too heavy to rest anywhere else. The diamond was still there, catching every passing light. I didn't take it off at the table. I hadn't taken it off since the parking lot.
We didn't turn the radio on. Normally Graham drove with music low, some playlist he controlled. Tonight there was only the car. The air conditioner hummed. His breathing next to me was even and shallow. At the red light on 3rd, I heard him shift in his seat. From the corner of my eye I saw him rolling his wedding band between his fingers, turning it over and over, watching the light hit the inside edge.
"You want me to take 1st or stay on Central?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away. He kept turning the band.
"Central's fine," he said finally, without looking at me.
I drove. The silence wasn't the comfortable kind we'd had before, when we could sit without talking. This one had weight to it. He used it on purpose. When he was angry he didn't yell, he went quiet and let me fill the space until I apologized for something I hadn't sorted out yet. I knew the pattern. I kept my eyes on the road and didn't fill it.
At the light by the Tropicana Field overpass, I remembered his grandmother's hands. She'd been ninety-one that winter we got engaged. We'd gone to her house in Gulfport because Graham said she wanted to give it to me herself. The living room smelled like lemon polish and coffee. She had taken the ring from its little velvet box with knuckles that didn't bend easily anymore, and she hadn't handed it to Graham. She'd reached for my left hand. Her fingers were cold. She slid it over my knuckle and held my hand in both of hers and said, "This stayed with me a long time. Now you keep it safe, Celeste." Graham had stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders. That was the whole thing. She didn't say it was his. She said it was mine to keep safe.
The light turned green. I pressed the gas.
Graham turned the band once more and then closed his fist around it. "You were going to tell me you were with the girls," he said, still staring through the windshield.
"I did tell you that," I said.
"Right."
I tightened my grip on the wheel. My sequined dress scratched against the seatbelt. "It wasn't what it looked like in there."
"What did it look like?" he asked.
I didn't answer. Anything I said about Landon would sound like I was explaining away something he had already decided.
We turned onto our street off 22nd. The apartment building was the pale stucco one with the parking lot in back and the single palm that dropped fronds after every storm. I pulled into my usual spot and put the car in park and let it idle. Rain ticked on the roof. The wipers kept moving.
He didn't get out. He sat with his band in his closed hand and his other hand on his knee. I could see the tattoo on his forearm shift as he flexed his fingers.
I looked at my left hand on the wheel. The diamond was wet where rain had come in when I opened the door. I didn't take it off. I wasn't going to in that car.
May you like
"We're here," I said.
He nodded once and opened his door. I turned the car off and grabbed my clutch from the back seat. We walked to the stairwell without touching, the lot lights making our shadows short on the asphalt. I could hear our apartment air conditioner running behind the window on the second floor.
