BEGUINE

CHAPTER TEN

November, 1994
“Why were you looking at Harry’s books tonight?”

Even when Stan’s voice was angry, it stirred her heart. Karen closed her eyes for a moment as she stood by her car in the parking lot. After finishing in Harry’s office, she had listened to the last set from the back of the club where she thought Stan wouldn’t notice. She had hurried out while he was packing up his instrument, never dreaming he would follow her.

She took a deep breath and turned to face him in the dim light. “He had a problem he wanted me to look at.”

“Some sort of problem that has to do with your firm, right?”

Karen’s blood ran cold. “What makes you say that?”

“I saw a letter on his desk, and the letterhead said ‘Warrick, Thompson.'”

Her mind raced through ideas of what to tell him. But truth was the easiest way out. She gave him the same explanation she had given Harry about her involvement with Waterfront Development.

He moved nearer as she spoke and set his instrument bag on the ground. He was so close she fantasized about being in his arms and kissing him, even as she told the cold, impersonal story of her mandate to close Jazz By the Bay.

When she finished, Stan stared at her without saying anything for a long time. Then he demanded, “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Risk your career to save Harry’s place.” He moved a step closer as he spoke, and she could smell his familiar warmth. It made her think of sleeping in his bed last Saturday night and of wanting him so much it still hurt. His voice became cold. “If you did it for me, you shouldn’t have. I didn’t call you last week for a reason.”

His hostility penetrated her heart even more deeply than the silence of her phone had done day after day, but she was determined to maintain her dignity. “I know that. I did it for Harry and Kristin. And for me. If the club isn’t open, I can’t come to hear you.”

“You can’t get involved with me, Carrie Moon.”

“Why?” The word surged up from the depths of her aching heart.

“You’ll just get hurt.”

“And what if I’m already hurt?”

“It would be a much worse hurt if you got involved with me.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

His tone was as final as a death knell, and it kindled her anger. “You don’t know anything! You’re trying to hurt me enough to make me go away.”

“No, I’ve already told you the truth for your own good. I’m not going to let myself love anyone because I can’t take losing anyone else I care about. Love doesn’t work out for me.”

“Then you might as well be dead.”

“Maybe. But I know what I can and cannot risk. And I can’t risk getting close to you. I know that’s what you want, Carrie Moon. And you’re wasting your time.”

“Am I?” Karen suddenly stepped toward him, shaking her hair out of its workday confinement and letting it hang loose in a red-gold cloud around her shoulders. She turned her face up to his, inviting him to kiss her.
He wanted her. Of that much she was sure. His eyes locked onto hers, and his chest rose and fell with the effort he was making to control himself. She moved another step closer and could feel his warm breath on her face. She tilted her chin up just a little more, encouraging him to lean down to her.

To Karen that moment seemed to last for an eternity. The larger world had collapsed and only she and Stan were left as they stood bathed in the soft gold of the street lamps, surrounded by the nothing of the black night. She felt the cool breeze from the bay on her hot skin as she waited for his kiss. She wanted to freeze her life forever at this moment of potential, where no disappointment yet existed.

But Stan drew back. “No. I won’t kiss you.” He picked up his trumpet bag and turned away, heading for his car without looking back. Karen watched him get in, start the engine, and gun it out of the parking lot. So much for her hopes of spending the night with him. Maybe it was some comfort that he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else that night. But not much.

She got into her own car and drove slowly home. She undressed and crawled into her cold bed, replaying over and over the moment when the two of them had been facing each other, and there had still been time for him to decide to kiss her. She lay awake until dawn, listening to the ocean, longing for the kiss that had not come and remembering what it had felt like to sleep in Stan’s bed.