Sugar Street Read online

  “Tennis lessons.” Delia said. “Parker has a website and everything.”

  “You talked to him already?”

  “I followed up with Belinda. A few feeling-out questions. He does some kind of monthly plan, apparently, and you get discounts for referring others.”

  “Geez. You and he really are in the same business, aren’t you? Did Belinda get a hostess gift for today?” Jess choked back an absurd laugh. “An embroidered tennis bag and free cunnilingus?”

  “Look, I thought the same thing when Belinda asked me to schedule today...”

  “Wait. You knew?”

  “Not exactly. I’d heard rumors about Parker over the last couple of months, and Belinda said she wanted to introduce us to her tennis coach. When he showed up at lunch, I put two and two together.”

  Jess stared at the blinking cursor on her screen. There was no chance she’d be able to concentrate on work now. “You mean, there’s been a hooker teaching tennis lessons at the club for months? I had no idea.”

  “Escort,” Delia corrected again. “Honestly, Jess. You sound like a 1980s cop show.”

  “And you’re seriously considering hiring him?”

  “I think we all should. There’s a discount if we book more than one appointment.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “You said yourself that you and Tom have been missing a spark lately.”

  “Missing a spark, Delia. As in, we need to get a sitter and have a date night. Not a frigging male prostitute!” When her friend didn’t respond, Jess went on. “I thought you and Gage had a…how do you put it…flexible arrangement? Why don’t you go out and find some hot guy and have a normal affair? Why would you pay for sex?”

  “It’s not about sex, Jess. I said that already. Please try to keep up. It’s about our husbands seeing us as desirable. Believing that another man wants us, to reinvigorate that feeling, you know, when they were pursuing us. Fighting for us. Remember that feeling?”

  Unbidden, an image flashed into Jess’s mind: Tom at twenty-two, half-drunk and tearful on the doorstep of her college apartment, the night she’d let another guy take her out on a date. The desperate longing and rare vulnerability on his face. How the light in the breezeway flickered behind him, the night air warm and sticky. How he held her that night as if he would never let her go, hot tears dripping onto her bare shoulders as he made love to her at dawn. “I remember.”

  “Of course you do. Every married woman does. I don’t want this guy to do anything with us. I want to make our husbands think that he wants to. I want that feeling back.”

  Jess was quiet for a minute, thoughts swirling. It’s not as though she were a prude or anything. She knew Delia and Gage had a marriage that was open, or at least unconventional, even though Delia was tight-lipped about it. It had never bothered Jess, as long as they were happy, the same way the idea of paying for sex didn’t morally offend her. Jess was a live-and-let-live kind of girl. After all, she’d seen The Wedding Date at least a dozen times. She loved that movie.

  And if she were being very honest, she wanted that feeling back, too. Tom had not looked at her as if he was crazy about her, terrified of losing her, in a very long time.

  But like doing an angry-sexy tango with Dermot Mulroney in a flowing green dress, the idea of hiring an escort felt like something people did in the movies. It was the kind of thing you tittered about with girlfriends over cocktails at the beach, a funny exercise in “Would you ever…?” It wasn’t something people did. You didn’t call up the neighbor across the cul-de-sac and talk about group discounts and scheduling.

  “At least say you’ll think about it,” Delia said. “Belinda is hoping to get him some new clients, so he doesn’t have to take some job in Orlando...”

  “Belinda, Belinda, Belinda…” Jess said irritably. “Can I ask why you’re so desperate to have that woman’s friendship? And don’t say it’s because you want her to throw one of your product parties and invite all her wealthy friends. There’s more to it than that.”

  “This isn’t about Belinda.”

  Jess could tell her friend was irritated. After almost a decade of friendship, sometimes Jess lost sight of how different she and Delia were. If they hadn’t moved in across the street from each other all those years ago, she wasn’t sure they would’ve become friends in other circumstances. Other than kids and location and husbands who traveled often, they didn’t have much in common. The need to climb in the ranks of the Sugar Mills social structure was one major difference.

  Still, she liked Delia, and didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “I don’t dislike Belinda. I don’t think she’s earned all the consideration you give her. That’s all.”

  “This doesn’t have to involve her. She made the connection, and I happen to think it’s worth exploring.”

  “There are easier ways to make your husband jealous. Call up an old boyfriend and leave your phone out so he can see your dialing history.”

  “You’re missing the point. That’s the wrong kind of jealousy. What we want—”

  “You, Delia. What you want.”

  “What we want is attention from a new guy, someone to make our husbands see us in a new way. Not bored wives desperate to rekindle an old flame. But confident, desirable women who can still attract a hot, young, half-Korean tennis pro with abs for miles. It’s the American dream!”

  Jess laughed. “Yes, I imagine this is exactly what our forefathers envisioned when they created our inalienable right to sexually objectify a twenty-something sports pro to manipulate our husbands. You should run for office.”

  “Laugh all you want. But when Tom comes home tomorrow night, you imagine that private cabana on the beach. Then tell me it’s not worth it.”

  Jess didn’t say that the exact thought had crossed her mind several times since lunch.

  “All I’m asking is that you hear me out. Let’s have coffee tomorrow, and if you still think I’m crazy, I’ll never bring it up again.”

  “It will have to be Monday.” Jess sighed. “Tom’s back from the road tomorrow night and I have to get this project edited and out the door before he gets home.”

  “Perfect. Carras has Monday mornings free, too, doesn’t she?”

  “You can’t seriously think Carras will be interested? Because I have to tell you, she’s pretty conservative. I know you think I’m a goody-two-shoes, but I’m a wild child compared to Carras. Plus, she and Stuart are perfect. He fawns over her as it is.”

  “Don’t be so sure about your perfect friend Carras. She didn’t say much today, but she was paying very close attention, I can tell you.” Delia paused. “Her eyes lit up when she saw Parker.”

  “That’s because she recognized him, dingbat. They were in the same tennis league or whatever.”

  “All I’m saying is, every marriage has room for more excitement. I’ll bet you twenty bucks Carras agrees with me.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll call Carras and explain. If she’s open to it, you’ll at least agree to discuss the idea.”

  Jess thought of sweet, intellectual Carras and unassuming Stuart. They loved comic books and zombies. They still sat on the couch together and held hands. They had cute little inside jokes that made Tom and Jess roll their eyes and gag. “You’re on.”

  3

  Carras

  That night, Carras lay awake for a long time, thinking about signs from the universe. She had her knees propped up on a stack of pillows, her flat belly lifted at an incline so she could not see the TV that flashed beyond.

  Her father didn’t believe in signs; he had always relied on his work ethic and one-line platitudes from business books to guide him. Her mother had died too young for Carras to know her. But Carras had a distinct memory of her grandmother, a plump, dark woman in a vivid orange head wrap, pulling the meat from a conch with a paring knife and laughing with a smile so wide it seemed to split her face in half. Carras had been too young to participa
te in the conversations between her grandmother and the other “Belonger” women—the Islanders—or to understand what was said. But even though the memories were distant, she could hear the laughter to this day. And she had a suspicion her grandmother had believed in signs.

  Stuart snored beside her, having done his manly duties for the night. These included fetching Carras water, covering her apparently fragile uterus with blankets, and asking about twelve times if she was comfortable, before drifting off to sleep. This hadn’t taken long, because his duties tonight had also included pounding into her, sweating and panting like a man possessed, doing everything the books suggested to give them what they wanted most: a child.

  Stuart didn’t believe in signs, either.

  He was facing away; his shoulder blades stuck out like the skinny kid he must once have been, the one place on his body that still held the hard lines and angles of adolescence. Was it weird that she loved the softness of him, the differences between their bodies? Stuart wasn’t pale but his tawny, pink-beige skin was a stark contrast to her own dark, cool umber. And although her skin had been further tanned—and muscles honed—from years of sweat and sun on the tennis court, Stuart’s had been subdued by bathing more often in the light of computer and television screens than he ever did in the sunlight.

  Not that Stuart was flabby. He put in his time on the treadmill at the gym down the street, and sometimes lifted weights while they watched Talking Dead with Chris Hardwick. But unlike the hyper-ambitious athletes Carras had spent most of her adult life around, Stuart was not obsessed with his BMI or his bench weight or the comparison between protein bars and electrolyte gels. To her husband, staying fit was a practical necessity rather than a life’s calling.

  And Carras loved that about him. Stuart was beautiful to her, and deliciously, liberatingly normal. He never quizzed her about her protein regimen or gave her a funny look if she had a second slice of pizza. He never judged when she did her monthly headfirst dive into a bowl of buttered popcorn, giant Toblerone, and a bottle of wine. Stuart would find her in those moments, on the couch, watching sappy movies in the dark, and join her—his own wineglass in hand. Wordless, innate acceptance. It was the best gift Carras had ever received.

  She wanted to touch him now, to roll over and slide her hand between the rise of his hip and the relaxed arc of his elbow, to feel the tiny potbelly forming on her husband as they began the long, glorious process of growing old together.

  But she couldn’t, not yet. She was supposed to lie here in this awkward position for another seven minutes at least. Most of the books said ten minutes, but she and Stuart had agreed twenty would be better.

  What could it hurt?

  What could any of it hurt?

  There was always some new wisdom, some new remedy to try. Eating yams. Chugging cough syrup. Coconut water mixed with green tea. Chiropractic adjustments. Oysters. Acupuncture. Blood tests, ovulation monitoring, and yet more tests, which all came back mystifyingly, infuriatingly normal. Two years of folk wisdom, internet remedies, injections, and very expensive failed IVF cycles. Theories were everywhere. Maybe all the hard years of training had taken a toll on Carras’s body. Maybe there was something going on with Stuart that didn’t show up in tests. Maybe it was stress. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

  Three months ago, sitting in the doctor’s office with her broken heart in her hands, Carras had suggested they consider adoption. But Stuart—normally rational and agreeable to a fault—pushed back. “You’re still in your twenties.”

  “Twenty-eight. And you’re thirty-six.”

  “Let’s give it more time,” he said. “I’m just…not ready to think about raising someone else’s child.”

  “We would be raising our child,” Carras corrected.

  She saw the shame on Stuart’s face as he realized what he’d said. “Right. Of course.” He reached for her hand, pleading. “You know that’s not what I meant, right? I’ve always pictured our child having your eyes, your strength...”

  Exasperated, Carras took her hand away. “Even if we have a biological child, you know you won’t be able to control those things, right? Nothing is going to be exactly what we pictured.”

  Across the desk, the doctor cleared her throat. “Listen. This is a heartbreaking time for every couple. You two have been through a lot—financially, emotionally, hormonally... Can I make a suggestion? Take six months off from treatments. Relax, let your body recover. Enjoy being a married couple for a while longer. Take a vacation. Come back, and we’ll discuss the options again. Your husband is right, Mrs. Prather. Biologically speaking, you do still have plenty of time.”

  Wise enough advice. And as they shuffled out of the clinic to drown their disappointment in nachos and a matinee action movie, Carras did her best to accept it.

  To be fair, they hadn’t been married that long. Their courtship had been a whirlwind, the result of meeting at Comic-Con in San Diego five years ago. Stuart had made his annual pilgrimage with his gaming coworkers, and Carras was enjoying a much-needed break from pursuing her graduate degree in counseling and playing in endless tennis tournaments. Disappearing to Comic-Con for the weekend allowed her to hide out from her dad, her coach, and her thesis advisor simultaneously. Comic books and fantasy novels had been a lifeboat for her as a lonely, motherless child—moving to a new place once a year, living in the hotels that her immigrant father started out cleaning, and eventually owned and managed. Now her tennis career had her skipping from one hotel to the next, isolated in a sea of trainers, fans, and journalists. Carras loved immersing herself in a world where she was not the star, but just another rabid fan.

  Stuart had hit on her, awkwardly, on the conference level of the San Diego Marriott Marquis. They were both dressed as characters from The Walking Dead, waiting in line to meet Andrew Lincoln; Stuart tapped her on the shoulder with some terrible joke about her character stealing a protein bar. He was cute, in a Bruce-Lee-meets-Clark-Kent-wearing-a-bandolier kind of way: with bulky glasses over his deep-set brown eyes that belied his rugged denim shirt and ripped khaki cargo pants.

  She’d been ready to brush him off—like the countless guys who approached her at tennis tournaments—until it became obvious he had no idea who she was. Even when she told him, after they’d been talking in line for an hour, Stuart looked adorably blank and said, “I don’t follow tennis, but that sounds pretty badass.”

  She had loved him ever since.

  Their first “date” had been sitting in the lobby all night talking about zombies and superheroes. Their first, tentative kiss sometime between dawn and the overpriced hotel buffet breakfast. He was thirty, she was twenty-four; it was not until much later that it would occur to them they did not live in the same city, and it might be difficult to see each other again. Which they both desperately wanted to do.

  So, she flew to Atlanta on her off-weeks from tennis, getting in her training runs and studying while he was at the office. She met him naked at the door when he came home, like an old-fashioned housewife. They would laugh, make love, laugh some more, forget to eat, and order late-night Chinese while Stuart complained unconvincingly that he had to be back at work in a few hours. Carras would shove him gently with her feet and tell him to go on to bed because nobody was forcing him to stay up with her, and soon they’d be making love again, on the couch, on the floor…

  On weekends, Stuart did his best to fly to wherever Carras was playing. This was harder, because there was a high probability her father would be wherever Carras was. Since her mother’s death, her father was all she had—her childhood spent following him as he chased success for them both. He lived in Waco now, where he’d finally settled when Carras got a full ride to Baylor, in the first house he’d owned since immigrating to the States. He still traveled to watch her compete, still quietly hovered in her life with his inspirational quotes at the ready.

  Sebastian Lightbourne didn’t disapprove of Stuart, but Carras sensed his desire to protect her from all potential r
isks, including distractions and heartbreak. So they all stayed in separate rooms when they traveled, and she and Stuart sneaked into each other’s rooms, giggling like the teenagers Carras was learning to counsel.

  After several months of this long-distance dance, Stuart got promoted, and proposed to Carras at a rooftop restaurant overlooking Atlanta. “What do you think?” He squeezed her hand and took in the skyline. “Could you be happy here?”

  Carras didn’t hesitate. “I can be happy wherever you are.”

  They were married a few months later. Carras graduated, got her counseling license, and retired from tennis over her father’s objections that she still had several good years left. He stayed in Waco when Carras packed for Atlanta, the first time she had ever been permanently away from her father.

  She and Stuart settled into their enormous house in Sugar Mills, near Stuart’s college friends Tom and Jess, and their children Dash and Mina, who were still very young at the time. “Tom and Jess are built-in family,” Stuart said. “Our kids can grow up together.”

  So began the business of getting to know each other. Their lovemaking that first year was much the same as it had been: seductive, unpretentious, endless. Carras had never done well on pills, so they used condoms, agreeing to start a family after a year, once they had settled in. Sometimes these days, Carras thought of all those condoms…the tense moments of frustrated digging in drawers, last-minute runs to the drugstore. Such wasted effort and emotion, avoiding the very thing they now wanted so badly. As though pregnancy before they were ready was a thing to be avoided. As though they were in control.

  Carras, who had never felt rooted anywhere, loved the promise of Stuart’s fantasy. The stable family home, friends who would come and go. Maybe even a girlfriend to give her advice about raising young children, the sister Carras never had. They weren’t quite like sisters, but Jess was lovely; Carras liked her and Tom. She didn’t mind the quiet suburban life, or the sameness of the drive to her counseling practice in the afternoons. After a year, Stuart threw away his last box of condoms and they made love with joyful, giddy abandon, each time aware they could be changing their lives forever.