When in Rio (22 page)

Jack lifted the case out of my hand, hefting it easily. “Dr. Johnston tells me his wife wants to go dancing tonight. I told him I’m from Houston so I only know the two-step, the polka, the waltz and the chicken dance. But he insists that anybody can learn to samba. I’m thinking of challenging Lourdes. If I do successfully samba by the time the evening is over, she has to get up and do the chicken dance. So what do you say?”

I say this is the strangest double date ever.
“That sounds wonderful.”

Chapter Nineteen

Jack made me pull my new dress out of the closet, insisting it was perfect for dancing. Insisting I wear it, actually, although I wasn’t exactly complaining. Mainly I was too busy admiring Jack’s suit, which was a dark charcoal with the most subtle gray pinstripe imaginable, and draped perfectly over his body.

“My other vice,” he said, when he caught me peeking at the lining of his jacket as it lay on the bed, tossed there while he fiddled with his tie in the mirror. “I had a few suits made in London while I was there. This was the most recent one, it’s the closest to still being in style I guess. Really the only one lightweight enough to wear here. Or back home, except in January or February.”

“You really had them made from scratch? Like, bespoke?” I tried to picture Jack standing while all those measurements were being taken, and realized it was no problem as long as I pictured him with a kind of childish glee at the absurdity of it all.

“Mm-hmmm. You get spoiled though. It’s like flying first class. You can never go back to coach after that. I can never buy suits off the rack again.”

“Let’s hope you never have to, unless you lose your luggage again sometime.” I tried to keep a solemn face but couldn’t hold it for long, and Jack smiled back affably. He really was like a giant kid about some things, I was starting to realize. Which was sort of endearing, given how very much like a grownup he was about so many other things. “You really like clothes, don’t you? You
are
straight, right?”

He shrugged, looking back into the mirror and undoing his tie with a grimace to start all over. “Guys don’t do it for me. And clothes are just equipment. You know…you want the right equipment to do a job, and you have to take care of the equipment. Well, in London I had this epiphany that for my job, the equipment was a really well cut, conservative suit and the right kind of tie. I hadn’t ever really cared much before then. Kept my shoes polished, that was about it, and only because my dad drummed that into my head from an early age.”

He finally achieved the magic proportions he’d been seeking for his tie—it looked identical to the previous two efforts to me, but what did I know?—and reached for his jacket, which settled easily and beautifully on his shoulders. I suddenly felt vaguely cheap looking next to him in my store-bought finery.

Until, that is, Jack looked over at me where I lay musing on the bed, and smiled
that
smile.

“You look amazing. I mean, you look amazing anyway, but that dress is just…” He slouched down onto the bed, disregarding the wrinkles it might create in his suit, and bent to kiss me very carefully on the lips. “I get why you’re wearing lipstick but I hate it. I always feel like I’m
gonna
end up smearing it everywhere.”

“It’s equipment,” I said with a smirk. “I’ll take it off later, as soon as I’m done using it.” I wasn’t feeling quite as amused as I let on. Even his chaste peck had caused the now-familiar burn to start up again. Was I that easy to program?

“Thank you, by the way. I really like these.” Jack sat up and toyed with his cufflinks, turning the stone on one to let the light play through it. “But when I saw you at the back of the room earlier, all I could think about was you on the beach in the moonlight. I almost had to take a short break before I could start the presentation.”

I chuckled, remembering the look on his face at that moment—it was something I thought I might like to remember forever. “I don’t think anybody noticed though. You covered well.”

The boyish grin was back again as Jack stood and took my hand, pulling me up and into a little spin before catching me in his arms for a deeper kiss. I didn’t want it to end, but eventually it had to. He used his finger to gently dab a tiny smear of lipstick from below my bottom lip.

“Let’s go dancing.”

* * * * *

Of course we went eating first, to a restaurant in
Ipanema
that must have carried at least six stars on a five-star rating scale. Everything was melt-in-the-mouth delicious—or perhaps I was just that hungry. It was local food, and after studying the menu awhile I finally just let Jack order for me, despite his grumbled reassurance that he wasn’t
always
planning to do the ordering for both of us.

His next whispered comment, that he was only sorry he wouldn’t get to feed me by hand like the other night, just made me blush and look over at the
Johnstons
with a gulp and a sheepish smile, like a guilty teenager. I felt like it must be blazing in neon across my body—“I am having wild sex with this gorgeous man nightly”. But evidently it wasn’t. Professor Johnston just smiled back and started asking about work, as if we were simply four reasonable adults eating dinner.

Lourdes seemed a bit less fraught this evening, and entertained us all with some amusing stories about planning Tom’s wedding, which sounded as though it was likely to be quite an extravagant affair. Had I not already heard her true opinion of her future daughter-in-law from her husband, I might not have caught the subtle innuendos, the damning by faint praise, that characterized her descriptions of the bride, the bride’s taste in clothes, the bride’s choice of flowers, the bride’s registry selections. I was tempted to think “poor Natalia”, but from Arthur’s interjected remarks, it sounded as though the bride was getting every bit of her own back from her future mother-in-law. It promised to be a highly entertaining event and I was glad Arthur had invited me.

Then I surprised myself by thinking of, and feeling a bit sorry for, Tom. He really wasn’t cut out to be caught between two women of this caliber, if what I remembered of him was accurate, and I hoped for his sake he didn’t get injured too badly in the crossfire. He should at least be able to enjoy his own wedding…

Which I realized Arthur was now discussing as though assuming Jack would also be in attendance.

I gave that some thought and then quickly shut down that line of thinking, as I realized if I kept going it was really only a matter of time before I started doodling “Mrs. John Benedict” on the tablecloth. We had only been going out—and staying in—for five days, after all.

After slowly getting to know each other for two years, and then spending ten and twelve hours a day together, five or six days a week, for the past month or so
, my traitorous subconscious chimed in.
Ordering all those lunches in so you could stay at the office and eat together while you worked wasn’t just about efficiency and productivity, was it?

Had we really been doing that? Manufacturing excuses to spend time together, even weeks ago?

I thought about the many late nights, the many working lunches and dinners, and just how often those meals had stretched out far longer than they needed to as we’d talked about things that had little to do with work. The environment and politics, of course. Those were good starting places because they were necessarily related to the job.

But looking back, I suddenly realized how often those had been
only
starting places. I knew things about Jack that I wasn’t even quite sure how I knew, when I actually thought back on those conversations. Not just his politics, but things like his views on religion—raised Methodist, but never went to church—and how many children he wanted—two, because he liked the idea of a big family but more than two per couple wasn’t in line with sustainability of the earth’s resources. Even things like the fact that he was two months overdue to have his teeth cleaned, but he always had his car serviced ahead of schedule. Well, that made sense—cars were equipment, not unlike his suits or his rock-climbing paraphernalia. Teeth were equipment too, but he didn’t look at it that way so he was taking them for granted.

Thinking about things like this always got me into trouble. When Jack next took a bite of his chop and seemed to be struggling with a piece of gristle, I looked at him sternly and said, out of the blue as far as he was concerned, “See? Teeth are equipment too. You should get them serviced regularly, just like your car.”

What was probably most telling was that, instead of giving me a look as though I’d gone crazy, he just kept chewing and then once he had swallowed said thoughtfully, “You know, you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Okay, I’ll call when we get back, I promise.”

And then he kept on eating. As if my bringing up something from a random conversation we’d had three weeks ago made perfect sense. As if I was now the person who was allowed to nag him about getting his teeth cleaned.

The Professors Johnston weren’t giving me funny looks either. They were giving me and Jack and one another very knowing looks, which I wished they would keep to themselves. But still it was a fantastic dinner, another little weight on one side of the scale that was rapidly tipping in favor of a return visit to this city despite its unfortunate
beachiness
.

On the other side of the scale, however, we had to go dancing next. The club was just a few blocks away and we arrived far too quickly in my opinion. Lourdes whipped her husband out onto the dance floor almost instantly, and Jack and I were first amused and then amazed at the way the pair moved. It was like water, that fluid and easy, and although it seemed to make perfect sense for Lourdes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was like an optical illusion to see Arthur, my old professor, moving his hips that way.

Only after a few minutes did I notice their intense eye contact and feel something like embarrassment, even though they were only dancing. The room seemed to get a bit smaller and warmer all of a sudden. I had to divert my attention a bit, looking at some of the other couples on the moderately crowded floor.

We had found a table not too far from the dance floor, and from where I sat next to Jack I could feel the muscles in his leg moving as he caught the infectious beat. I felt the same way. It looked like fun, and they all made it look so easy. However, it also looked a far cry from a waltz or a two-step.

The song ended and as the
Johnstons
made their smiling, breathless way to our table, I felt Jack pick up the faster beat of the next song before he stood and offered his arm to Lourdes with a cordial little bow.

Baffled, I watched them make their way out to the center of the floor just as Dr. Johnston leaned over and said loudly over the music, “Jack wanted me to confess something on his behalf. He lied. He didn’t think you’d come if you knew you were the only beginner among us. He was going to break it to you more slowly, but Lourdes wanted him for the faster numbers. I can’t quite manage those like I used to.”

And even as he spoke they started dancing—and it was just about as far from the chicken dance as one could possibly get.

How could Arthur seem so unconcerned? How could he order drinks with such smiling equanimity? Jack was out there making fully clothed, vertical, mad, passionate love to his
wife
, and the professor was just watching as though it were no big deal.

I looked around the room again, dragging my eyes away from the pair of them through sheer force of will. Okay, that was better—clearly everyone else was doing it too.

And I realized, with the dull thud that comes when you realize you’ve been stupid, that obviously Marisa would have wanted to do it like everyone else—ergo, Jack would have had to learn how. He would have certainly had ample motivation, from everything he’d said about their relationship.

And I had ample motivation too, only partly because of Jack. Because it really did look like fun. Smoldering, sexy, slightly sweaty fun, to boot—all longtime favorites of mine. And if Jack, a Houston boy, could learn to move his hips like that…

I felt the gauntlet had been thrown down, and I had no choice but to accept the challenge. It was either that or watch Lourdes slither around the dance floor with my boyfriend all night.

Only later, while Lourdes and Jack were tag-teaming my samba lesson to the great amusement of Arthur, who sat observing, did I consider that I was no longer thinking of Jack as my boss first. Interesting.

Boyfriend
, though?
Lover
seemed like a more appropriate term, but it was always one that sounded a bit pretentious to me. Perhaps the term
beau
should be taken out of mothballs?

“Katie, take your shoes off and try just putting your feet on mine until you get the beat.”

“What am I, five years old?”

“Katie, shoes. Off. Now.”

No, I was fairly certain that one did not indulge in Domination and submission games with one’s
beau
. I took my shoes off and placed my bare feet on Jack’s shiny black shoes, marveling that the leather was so soft I could feel his toes moving beneath mine. But did one’s master ask one to dance on his feet?

“Now look at me. Eyes on mine, okay? Just feel the beat, don’t worry about memorizing the steps.”

“You’re lucky she’s such a tiny little thing, Jack,” Arthur commented dryly as Jack started to move to the music again.

“True. Imagine if I’d had to teach
you
that way,” Lourdes quipped, cracking us all up at the immediate image her words conjured—Arthur, trying not to crush her elegant feet while Lourdes struggled to lift them at all.

“Focus,” Jack said softly, and my eyes flew back to his. All that blue…and the most wonderful crinkles at the corners when he smiled, even when he didn’t quite smile with his mouth. I let myself stare into his eyes for a few minutes and once my mind was off my feet, I finally caught the basic steps, the syncopation, and was able to duplicate it for a few minutes before I started thinking too hard again and lost it.