The Love Season by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

first glass of champagne went down, followed quickly by a second, Marguerite wondered if they would make love. But Porter remained seated primly on the divan, halfway across the room. And then, he looked at his watch.
    “I should get ready,” he said.
    “Yes,” she said. “By all means.”
    He vanished to another part of the house, his bedroom, she presumed, and she couldn’t help but feel crushed that he didn’t ask her to join him. They had showered together under the roses; he had washed her hair. Marguerite finished her second glass of champagne and repaired to the kitchen to fill her glass a third time. When she opened the refrigerator, she found a corsage in a plastic box on the bottom shelf.
    “Oh,” she said. She closed the door.
    A while later, Porter emerged in a tuxedo, smelling of aftershave. Now that he was about to make his escape, he seemed more himself. He smiled at her, he took her hands in his, and rubbed them like he was trying to start a fire. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I really wish I’d had a moment’s notice.”
    “It’s my fault,” Marguerite said.
    “What will you do for dinner?” he said. “There’s a bistro down the street that’s not half-bad with roast chicken. Do you want me to call right now and see if I can reserve you a seat at the bar?”
    “I’ll manage,” she said.
    He kissed her nose, like she was a child. Marguerite nearly mentioned the corsage, but that would only embarrass them both. He would pick up flowers on the way.
     
    That night, afraid to climb into Porter’s stark king-size bed (it was wide and low, covered with a black quilt, headed by eight pillows in sleek silver sheets) and afraid to use one of the guest rooms, Marguerite pretended to sleep on the silk divan. She had purposefully changed into a peignoir and brushed out her hair, but when Porter came home (at one o’clock? Two?) all he did was look at her and chuckle. He kissed her on the forehead like she was Sleeping Beauty while she feigned deep, peaceful breaths.
    In the morning, Marguerite knocked timidly on his bedroom door. (It was cracked open, which she took as a good sign.) He stirred, but before he was fully awake, she slid between the silver sheets, which were as cool and smooth as coins.
    I want to stay , she thought, though she didn’t dare say it. I want to stay here with you . They made love. Porter was groggy and sour; he smelledlike old booze; his skin tasted ashy from cigarettes; it was far from the golden, salty skin of summer. He wasn’t the same man. And yet Marguerite loved him. She was grateful that he responded to her, he touched her, he came alive. They made love; it was the same, though he remained quiet until the end, when a noise escaped from the back of his throat. Might she stay? Did he now remember? But when they were through, Porter rose, crossed the room, shut the bathroom door. She heard the shower. He was meeting a student at ten, he said.
    For breakfast, he made eggs, shutting the refrigerator door quickly behind him. While Marguerite ate all alone at a dining-room table that sat twenty at least, he disappeared to make a phone call. Corsage Woman? Marguerite was both too nervous to eat the eggs and starving for them; she had skipped dinner the night before. When Porter reappeared, he was smiling.
    “I called you a car,” he said. “It will be here in twenty minutes.”
    What became clear during Marguerite’s scant twenty-four hours in Manhattan was that she had broken some kind of unspoken rule. She didn’t belong in Porter’s New York; there was no niche for her, no crack or opening in which she could make herself comfortable. This wounded her. Once she was back on Nantucket, she grew angry. She hacked at the driftwood mantelpiece with her favorite chef’s knife, though this effort ended up harming the knife more than the mantel. She had closed the restaurant for the winter; there weren’t enough customers to justify keeping it open.