The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners by Luanne Rice

had arranged a season of parties, excursions for the garden society, even the New York Yacht Club cruise aboard Sirocco . She’d spent weeks dating Alexander, feeling as if he was impeccably right for her, and insufferably boring. Taylor showed up one rainy day, came straight from the airport, found Lyra on the porch of her mother’s house.
    She sat in a white wicker rocking chair, dressed in a coral sundress, waiting for her ride to the Vanderbilt tea. Staring at the rented Ford, she wondered what had happened to Alexander’s Bentley And then Taylor had climbed out.
    The short walk from the driveway to the curved porch drenched him. He stood on the stone path, gazing up at her, waiting for her to say something. She felt frozen, seeing him there.
    “Taylor,” she said.
    “This isn’t what you want,” he said. Rain drove out of the east, rattling leaves and soaking every inch of him. His brown hair hung in his face, dripping into his eyes; he didn’t bother brushing it away.
    “Come out of the rain,” she said.
    He did. He climbed the curved white steps, his jaw set, his expression serious—not angry, hurt, none of the emotions Lyra had expected him to feel. She sat there, staring up at him, noticing he kept his distance; she felt herself quivering, and wanted to hold him.
    “Thank you for the statue,” he said. “Hermes.”
    She almost laughed. “You came all the way to say that?”
    “No,” he said. “I came all the way to tell you I love you.”
    “Taylor, I’m with someone else now.”
    “No, you’re not,” he said. “I know you, Lyra. You’re trying your best to do it your mother’s way. Whoever the guy is, I’m sure he’s perfect.”
    Lyra pictured Alexander’s tan, his car, his gold crest ring. She thought of his Christmas in Gstaad, his New Year’s at Palm Beach. His memberships in the Reading Room and Bailey’s Beach. She stared at Taylor’s salt-marsh hazel eyes, his dripping hair, the frayed collar on his blue shirt.
    “Yeah,” Lyra said. “He is. Perfect.”
    “Honey, you don’t want that,” Taylor said.
    Her eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head. “No. I don’t.”
    Something about the storm enclosed them and made it impossible to lie. Her mother’s wishes for wealth and status and the right kind of lineage suddenly seemed both funny and sad, like a very old novel with characters quaint and antiquated.
    Lyra stood, faced him. The wind was blowing hard, but it felt warm—tropical air, up from the islands. She knew there’d be white-caps in the harbor, and huge breakers at the beach, and she was glad Taylor’s flight had made it in before the airport was shut down.
    “What can we do?” she asked.
    “Do?” he asked, smiling as if the answer was so obvious. But to Lyra it wasn’t—this was her dilemma, and always had been. She wondered why she didn’t feel she could really exist with this man she still loved. Her true feelings seemed impossible to support; it would be easier to construct a life from her mother’s specifications than to follow her own heart.
    “I’m afraid it won’t last,” she said.
    “But you don’t know that,” he said. “You can’t know if you don’t try.”
    “Why would you want me?” she asked.
    “You’re an idiot to even ask.”
    He hadn’t touched her yet. There was a foot of air between them. That gravity in his eyes—it pulled her straight toward him, as if she were a falling leaf and he was the earth. She crushed into him, soaking her coral silk sundress. They kissed, surrounded by hurricane energy. Raindrops tapped the roof and the leaves on all the trees, and the wind swirled through the porch.
    Alexander’s tires crunched on the driveway. Lyra heard, and couldn’t look. She buried her face in Taylor’s shirt.
    “Lyra?” Alexander asked.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, turning finally. He hadn’t gotten out of his car; he sat in the driver’s seat, window rolled down, staring up at her and Taylor.
    Not