The Tenderness of Thieves Page 6

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have taken you there. I should have known better.”

  I stayed silent. Waited for him to explain.

  “And I shouldn’t have left you even for a minute,” he went on. “I just . . . had to get something out of the way with my friends, and I didn’t want you to be around for it. I wish we could go back to the beginning and start the night over. I would do everything differently.” Handel sounded so yearning as he said these words. He stared at me lying there. Seemed like he was debating something. Then he spoke. “Can I join you?”

  At first, I didn’t answer. I was thinking maybe we should just call it a night.

  But then I reminded myself how our evening began. How much I’d been enjoying it. I shifted as far as I could to the towel’s edge to make room. “Okay,” I said.

  And just like that, our night was saved.

  When Handel asked if he could join me, I didn’t think he would lie down, but that was what he did, and now we were stretched out, side by side, on a blanket meant for one, staring up at the stars as they disappeared behind the clouds. For the first time since dinner, I began to feel good again. My breaths came slow and full, the warm ocean breeze a soothing whisper all around. There was something so childlike and innocent about lying here with Handel. It was the kind of thing Bridget and I did when we were small and still sat with our mothers under their umbrellas and dug for crabs in the sand. Handel and I managed not to touch, not in a single place, not our shoulders or our hands or our feet, but I was so aware of him, his skin in the places it was exposed and his clothing in the places where it wasn’t, the curve of his jaw and the rise of his chest as he breathed. I wondered if he was thinking the same about me.

  It’s amazing how much was said without saying a thing.

  After another while, Handel shifted positions. He rolled onto his side, facing me, propping himself up on his elbow like at dinner. I could feel his eyes on me.

  “You won’t tell anyone about the story of my name, will you?” he asked.

  I laughed softly, my eyes still on the clouds above. They were about to eclipse the moon. “No, I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

  He let out a big breath, a long sigh of relief. “Good.”

  “Were you really that worried?”

  I could almost feel the smile cross Handel’s face even though I wasn’t looking at him. “I’ve got an image to maintain.”

  “Oh yeah?” I rolled onto my side, too, so we were facing each other. I propped myself up in the same position, happy to note that the smile I’d imagined on Handel’s face was real. “And what image is that?”

  “You said it yourself earlier. I’m the town bad boy. One of them at least. That story about my name would kill my reputation.”

  I reached out and flicked him on the arm. “You’re leaving out the other half of what I told you. The part about how you’re not so bad.”

  “Yeah. Well. I have my days.” He combed his fingers through his hair. Glanced toward the ocean. “Sometimes it’s hard to look my mother in the face. Knowing that every time I go off to work on the docks, she’s wishing things turned out differently.”

  Thunder rumbled far off in the distance. The air around us was growing thick with humidity, like you could slice it. “Maybe it’s a sign,” I said.

  “A sign of what?” Handel asked.

  I was so tempted to reach out and touch him, but I settled for a look. “A sign from the heavens that your mother was right,” I said. “You are destined for great things.”

  “Oh, of course I am.” He laughed. “What things exactly?”

  More thunder sounded. “Meteorology?”

  “In this town? No way.”

  “Right,” I agreed as a bolt of lightning cracked and lit up the ocean, flickering, then going out. “Firefighter, then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the storm is a sign I should be a fisherman after all.”

  In other circumstances I might have laughed at this, but Handel’s voice was so even, so steady. Like he really believed this was what he was meant to do. Or that it would be a relief to just let himself be this and only this. So all I said was, “Probably, that’s what it is,” and we turned our talk to other things.

  “Why are you doing this, anyway?” I asked Handel eventually.

  “Doing what?”

  “Hanging out with me.”

  Handel looked out over the ocean at the lightning again before turning, ever so slightly, in my direction. “I just,” he said, and paused. “I just . . . wanted to get to know you.”

  “Okay,” I said, because I felt like he’d told me the truth, and because it was okay. I wanted to get to know him, too, so much, more now than ever, and this seemed fine. More than fine. Like something I deserved.

  • • •

  Just before the rain came, we agreed we’d better get going or risk getting stuck in the storm. All I could think about was whether Handel would try to kiss me. Or if the right moment arrived, whether I would try to kiss him.

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Of course I do.”

  “It’s not like it isn’t safe,” I said with a laugh, one that died in my mouth as the word “safe” strangled me a little, because I wasn’t sure if that was true anymore. Especially not with Patrick McCallen just down the other end of the beach.

  “I picked you up and I’ll drop you back,” Handel insisted, his voice light, a smile on his face that made me forget those dark thoughts, that made me swoon really.

  We made our way up the beach toward the wharf and the parking lot. We reached the sidewalk and I stopped under the light of a streetlamp to slip my feet into my flip-flops. When I looked up again, Handel’s eyes were on my waist. There was a sliver of exposed skin along my hips, between the hem of my top and the start of my jeans. A thin line of sand clung to it. Handel reached over and brushed it away, his fingertips sliding along my navel so quickly it was a whisper.

  Right then, big fat drops of rain plopped one by one on the ground around us.

  “We’d better hurry,” Handel said.

  We made our way down the street toward my house, dodging raindrops in the dark, neither of us with an umbrella. Thoughts of leaning just a little closer to Handel, close enough that our lips would touch, darted in and around me as we walked, a game of hide-and-seek among trees. I wondered if this crossed his mind, too, as the rain picked up, becoming a torrent, and we started to run, the two of us racing until we reached my yard.

  “This way,” I shouted over the din, going around to the porch at the back of my house, grabbing for the tiny metal knob of the screen door and opening it so we could rush inside.

  The two of us were soaked and panting from the run, my long hair wet and tangled, just like his. I started to laugh between big heaving breaths and so did Handel, the earlier, unpleasant part of the evening erased by all that intimate talk on the beach. I switched on a lamp. It was a murky dark green, made from an old jug, and the light from it was weak but enough to see the expression on Handel’s face. His eyes were different, bright and easy. Everything about him was different now, less weary and cautious. He looked younger.

  Then he noticed the picture frame on the table.

  My dad and me, just a year ago. He wore his uniform and was standing next to his police car. I was perched on the hood of it, knees up to my chin, a smile on my face, dark hair falling all around. A camera catching that split second when a girl suddenly becomes someone worth seeing.

  Handel picked it up. Studied it.

  I watched as the weariness in him returned.

  “You were close with your father,” he stated, the memory of my family gripped tight in his strong hand. “You must miss him. You must want the police to catch whoever killed him.”

  My mout
h opened. Shut. Handel had startled me. Such boldness. Cut right to the heart of things. Of me. “I, um,” I stuttered. Stopped.

  He put the frame down, a soft click against the wood. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  I watched Handel. He wouldn’t look at me anymore. Looked everywhere but. Tension radiated off him, his shoulders, his neck. There was silence, things grown awkward and strange after so much ease. I wanted to fix it. I wanted the connection back. “I don’t know,” I said quickly. “Sometimes I hope they don’t catch anyone.”

  His eyes found me again. Slowly. There was something in them, but it was something I couldn’t quite read.

  “No?”

  I shook my head. The rain pounded harder on the roof of the porch, filling the gaps between words.

  Handel blinked. “It’s late. I should probably go.”

  “Okay,” I said. He was right. It was late. But I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want our night to end like this. I wanted that kiss.

  “Yeah,” he said, like he was torn. Caught between two things, maybe to stay or to go. Maybe.

  “See you around,” I said then, just like that first day at the beach, before I’d walked away from him. No, I’d strutted. Definitely. Acted like I didn’t care. Like Handel and I talking didn’t matter.

  He already mattered, though. A lot.

  “See you,” he said, just like that day, too, but this time it was Handel leaving me behind, and me, watching him slip through the screen door of the porch into the pouring rain, listening as the door banged shut, closing him out or maybe it was me in, the sound of his footsteps pounding through the wet and the darkness of the night.

  SEVEN

  THE MORNING AFTER THE rainstorm was heavy with mist. The whole world smelled like the ocean. I could hear the seagulls crying overhead, flying farther inland because they couldn’t tell where the beach ended and where the rest of the town began. The storm had taken with it the oppressive heat, and there was a crispness to the air. I lay there in bed, the quilt pulled tight around me. The sun had come up, but the world was still gray. Its light hadn’t made its way through the cloud cover yet. I loved days like this. They were lonely, but not in a bad way. The beach would be nearly empty, free of the tourists who wanted their day in the sun. It made me want to walk along the ocean and stare into its depths because it was suddenly all mine. At least it always seemed that way to me.

  After last night I had some interesting topics for reflection, despite how my night with Handel had ended. The better part of it had been good, and this was the part that held my focus. I started to get dressed, my body already humming with the need to get down to the water while it was still early morning.

  Then I remembered.

  Michaela. Her dad. His request that I go down to the station today. Patrick and his metal-toed boots. My motivation evaporated, and I crawled back under the covers, jeans and all, and closed my eyes.

  • • •

  I woke later to the sound of the telephone. The landline my mother still kept in the house because cell service was spotty at best in our town, and nonexistent in most of it. She held on to it just in case we needed it someday, she always said. By the fourth piercing ring, I figured she must not be home to answer it, so I stumbled out of bed and went to the kitchen. Grabbed the phone after two more rings threatened to split my eardrums. “Hello?”

  “Jane,” said the voice on the other end. Male. Deep and older and one I knew well.

  My hand went to my head in an attempt to ward off the headache I didn’t have but was coming. “Hi, Professor O’Connor.” I held my breath.

  “Jane,” he said again. Quietly. Worried. “I’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of weeks. You haven’t returned my calls.”

  A mixture of guilt and resistance swirled my insides. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. It’s not easy what you’ve been through. What you and your mother have been through,” he corrected.

  I didn’t say anything. Just stared at the phone on the table. The number pad with its big raised buttons, like a strange plastic toy from another era. My mother had left the newspaper out, and the headlines caught my attention, glaring at me.

  RASH OF BURGLARIES OVER? RESIDENTS HOPEFUL;

  NO SUSPECTS IN SIGHT, POLICE SAY

  I flipped it over, blotting out the words, but Professor O’Connor was still waiting for me to speak. Dealing with the headlines was easy, but it’s not like I could treat him in the same way and hang up.

  I guess he got tired of waiting for me, though, because he spoke again. “It’s been a long time since Martha and I have heard from you,” he said in that confident teacher voice of his.

  “Please tell Dr. O’Connor hello,” I managed.

  “I will. Of course I will. But I wanted to see if you were all right.”

  “I’m fine.” I let out a big breath. I kept forgetting I needed air.

  “Are you?”

  “Sure.”

  There was a pause on the other end and then, “I don’t know if you’ve seen the news.” He stopped. Waited for me to confirm or deny. When I didn’t say anything, he continued on. “Don’t get discouraged. The police are going to find out who did this.”

  “I know,” I said. But I didn’t.

  “Maybe you and I could go down to the station and talk to them together,” he suggested. “I’d be more than happy to do it. In fact, I’d like to be able to—”

  “I’m actually headed there today,” I said, not letting him finish, tears already pricking my eyes at his kindness. He was always so kind and this was of the fatherly variety, which made it even more potent. It’s the kindness that kills you sometimes, I’d learned. “I’m okay to go alone.”

  “But you don’t have to.”

  “Thank you for offering. I mean it.”

  “All right,” he said, but he didn’t sound confident that what I wanted was what was best. “Jane, Martha and I would love to see you. We want to have you to the house for dinner, though I know you haven’t wanted to come here ever since . . .”

  A single tear made its way out of my eye, despite my fighting against it. It slid down my cheek, a lonely raindrop. “I’d love to see you, too. But I haven’t been able to get myself over there. I’m sorry.” My last two words were all but lost, my throat too tight to allow them air. Professor O’Connor started to say something else, but I couldn’t let him. I had a difficult day ahead, and I didn’t want to break down completely. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “But I have to go. Okay? Thank you. Thank you for calling. Really.” The phone made a soft click when I pressed the hang-up button with my finger. I held it there a moment, in a daze of sorts, before I placed the receiver in its cradle.

  To think that the very first moments of this morning held so much promise. Now the heaviness in the air only felt like it wanted to steal my breath. Suffocate everything. Take all the goodness this day might have had away.

  • • •

  I reached the police station quickly, more quickly than I’d wanted to.

  Like everything else in our town, it was down by the wharf. It wasn’t a pretty building, but it wasn’t ugly, either. A nondescript concrete and glass structure that someone had painted dark blue a long time ago, whether to match the color of the ocean or the uniform was unclear. There were tall windows on the side that faced the water, to keep an eye on the happenings on the wharf, I supposed.

  I was sweating underneath the long-sleeved shirt I’d put on, instinctively, before leaving the house. There was something about heading here that made me feel exposed and vulnerable. Like maybe jeans and a big shirt could hide me from view. I hadn’t always felt this way, not when I’d come to visit my dad, but now everything was different, and the station had become a place not where I’d find family but where there were cops who needed something from me. Police
with hopes that I could somehow give them a break in a case gone cold. Where now, when I walked through their door, what everyone would see was not simply Calvetti’s daughter—they would see that, too—but Calvetti’s grieving daughter who was also a witness.

  A witness.

  This was running through my head when I reached for the metal bar across the door to let myself in. I hesitated, holding it half-open or half-shut, depending on how you looked at it, waiting for someone to let me off the hook and tell me to go home. That I wasn’t needed anymore because the police figured out who was responsible for the break-ins, or because some other witness had come forward. For a quick second I thought I saw Handel reflected in the tall panel of glass, far behind me on one of the street corners, but not far enough that he was too small to make out. When I turned to see if it was him, there was no one there at all. I stared at the corner awhile, willing him to reappear as if I might have that power, to no avail. Then I was left to heft open the door a second time, back at square one, trying to make myself go inside. I was saved the trouble by Michaela’s father, who appeared before me as if he’d somehow known I was here. Maybe he had. Maybe he’d seen me through one of those big windows.

  “Jane, let me get that for you,” he said, opening the door the rest of the way easily. He filled the entryway. Wide and tall and strong. A man who ate a lot of pasta at home that his Italian wife cooked.

  “Hi, Officer Connolly.”

  “Thanks for coming down,” he said. “Michaela told me you would, and I’m grateful. Follow me.” He started down the narrow hallway that would take us past the front desk and the big, open office where my father’s former colleagues would be sitting, cups of coffee clutched in their hands, brown paper lunch bags decorating their in-boxes like cake toppers, sitting on top of tall stacks of files that will never get inputted into a computer because the police here worked the old-fashioned way. Michaela’s dad was halfway to his office before I took my first step across the cheap tiled floor, grayed with age and years of scuff marks. He reached his door and realized I hadn’t made it very far. “Come on, Jane,” he called to me. “You don’t have to stay very long. I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”