Page 74 of The Beachgoers
twenty-seven
— Then —
10 Years Ago
The Shower
FROM WHERE HE SITS ON an upholstered chair, the young man looks puzzled at what he’s hearing. You can tell by the way he tips his head and simply glances around. There’s a suitcase on the floor near the hotel room’s door. A knitted white shawl is tossed across the bed. A beaded white clutch is on a nightstand, too, beside a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. A tuxedo jacket is slung over a bedpost; white satin pumps are askew on the floor.
But that sound continues, sporadically. It’s vague and comes from the other side of the bathroom door. The shower is running, but it’s something else. The man listening looks to be in his late twenties. His light brown hair is spiked; a shadow of whiskers covers his face at day’s end. While he sits there in his tuxedo pants and loose button-down shirt, he pulls off his bow tie and fidgets with it. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees now, he tosses that tie. And drops his head. Then looks at the closed bathroom door. And twists a shiny gold band on his ring finger. In a moment, he gets up and switches on the TV across the room. A few moments later, he switches it off. And turns in the direction of the bathroom—but stops.
As though buying some time, he instead lifts the tuxedo jacket off the bedpost and carefully hangs it in a closet. Walks to a big window beside the bed next, reaches for a cord and lowers the roll-up blinds against the darkness. That done, he sits on the mattress, bends down and unties his dress shoes—which he slips off and neatly aligns near the nightstand. A table lamp is on there, so the room is dimly lit.
Finally, he does it. In his stocking feet, he crosses the room and stops outside the bathroom door. Putting his hand on the doorknob, he drops his head again and listens. For several seconds, there is no movement in the hotel room. He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t turn the knob, or turn away from the closed door.
In that odd stillness, the noise becomes a little clearer. What sounds like muffled sobs is nearly hidden by the hiss of the shower spray. But it’s there, a repetitive catching of breath, maybe? It’s a soft sound. This weeping might be happening with a towel pressed to his bride’s face.
“Aw, Lauren,” the man says to himself, lifting his head and listening still. “Come on, doll,” he whispers. “Don’t do this.”
Problem is, his whispers don’t make it through the door to this Lauren’s ears.
So the man turns the doorknob. He goes into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. An organza-tiered wedding gown hangs on a hook. A pearl necklace is on the vanity top. Standing there, the man squints across the room. Through the steamed-up shower glass, he can make her out. Lauren stands naked beneath a stream of water sluicing over her skin. Her sobs still come as she presses her face into a now-soaked towel.
“Hey,hey,” the man says, getting her to look up at him. When he opens the shower door, she holds the crying-towel to her chest. “Lauren,” he goes on, reaching into the enclosure and touching her wet face.
“Kyle.” Lauren quickly steps back. Her drenched hair hangs straight. Her face is blotched. Tears and water are indecipherable from each other. That wet towel clenched in her fingers hangs in front of her exposed body. “You weren’t supposed to—”
But she stops talking when Kyle shakes his head, briefly looks away, then does it.
He steps right into the shower and takes her into his arms—takes every soaking, naked inch of her. “Shh, shh,” he whispers, trying to quiet her crying. Standing there in his dress pants and button-down shirt, he pretty much wraps his whole self around her and just holds on. He’s a big guy, and tall, so it could look like he just swallowed all of her up. The way he holds her, oh nothing can get to Lauren. She’s protected. She’s safe. Even Kyle can’t really see her in his lug of an embrace. The shower water sprays his back and shoulders as he bends close to his bride.
“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry,” he says while water runs down his face. His mouth is pressed to the side of her head. His hand strokes her sodden hair. “Don’t be sad.”
“Kyle,” Lauren gasps. Her body is fully against his, but she manages to tip her face up. “It’s not you. It’snot… It’s just… everything.”
“I get it.”
“And it’s done,” she says.
“It is.”
“We did it.”
“We did, Ell. Somehow.” When she rests her wet face against his chest then, Kyle dipshisface low and presses a kiss onto her head. “It’s okay,” he repeats. “It’s okay.”
Which gets her to look up at him again as the water streams down their faces, along their shoulders. She raises a hand to the side of his jaw, stretches up and leaves a kiss there.
When she does, Kyle’s eyes close. But they wince a little while closed, holding back some emotion. Pain, maybe? Hurt? Loneliness? Or just vulnerability. Regardless, there’s something he won’t allow her eyes to see in his.
Not until Lauren kisses him once more, pressing her lips to his cheek again, then brusquely to his mouth. Okay, maybe there’s a small sob in there somewhere, maybe not. And she’s so overcome, she almost misses his lips, the way she and Kyle sort of bump into the kiss.
But Kyle takes that kiss. Cradles her face and takes all of it before pulling back and touching his forehead to hers beneath that shower water. His thumb strokes her cheek.
“Let’s get out of here, okay?” he asks. His soaked white shirt clings to his back, his chest and arms. His pants drip onto his drenched stocking feet.
When Lauren only nods, he reaches past her and shuts off the water. Looking around, he also leans out of the shower enclosure to grab another towel, this one dry, from a nearby hook. After giving her that towel, Kyle steps out of the shower himself. His clothes drip on the floor as he waits—not watching Lauren blot herself off. Not watching her towel-dry her hair. When she’s done, when she steps out of the shower, he holds open a fluffy white terry robe so that she can walk right into it—an arm at a time as he turns her and wraps her in that robe now.
“Good as new?” he asks, tying the sash.
“Oh, Kyle,” she answers, watching only his hands at her waist. But there’s a smile there on her lips when she looks up at him. It’s there. And he doesn’t miss it.
You can tell by the way he nods, then turns and opens the door for Lauren to step out into their wedding suite.
You can tell by the way he drops his eyes closed for a couple of relieved seconds—before grabbing a towel for himself and following behind her.
