Could all these thoughts be contained in a single kiss? It seemed impossible, but yes.

He pulled away. “I love you, Claire. I want you to come with me when I leave.”

She was confused. “And do what?” she said.

“Live with me. Marry me.”

“Matthew?” she said. The idea struck her as funny, and then it struck her as sad. He was so lost. And she was lost, too, more lost than he knew.

“Will you?” he said.

“Oh,” she said. Oh, oh, oh! Dear, darling grace of God. He was asking her for real. He meant it. “I wish I could. Believe me when I say, a part of me wishes I could.”

“Your kids can come with us. We’ll get a tutor—lots of people do it on the road. It will be good for them to see other countries, to learn other languages, experience other cultures.”

“Matthew,” she said, “I have a life here.”

“You’ll have a life with me. Please? I need you.”

“You need someone, but that someone isn’t me.”

“It is you. You’re telling me you don’t feel it?”

She felt something. What was it? Vestiges of old heartache, intense nostalgia, delight at seeing him, at touching him, at hearing him tell her she was still beautiful. A part of her wanted to run away with him; a part of her wanted to escape the turmoil she’d created, just leave, run off, go on tour, take the kids or leave them behind, get out of there. She had a lot of feelings, but she did not mistake any of them for love.

She kissed him on the tip of his nose. He still had the scar—measles, age seven. She hadn’t seen him in forever, but she knew him so well; she knew what was best for him. He had not wanted to go to California to record the album; he didn’t want to leave her. She said, If you don’t go now, you’ll miss your big chance! They fought about it; she insisted. You have to go! He couldn’t figure out why she was pushing him away. Things should have been the other way around: he should be wanting to go, she should be begging him to stay. Things were backward. He went, he wrote “Stormy Eyes,” he became a rock icon.

He may have forgotten all this. She would remind him in the morning. She laid her head against his chest. In there, his heart was rattling.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she said. Someone had told her this recently, but who was it?

She felt Matthew relax, as if he believed her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

She Knocks It Down

She woke up with a burst of adrenaline, as if someone next to her had rung the bell. This was it. Post time!

Jason had gone to the Downyflake; he would have breakfast, check on things at the work site, and be back by ten so that Claire could head to the tent to decorate. He’d left a note on the counter: Look outside.

She looked: there was a crowd of people on the cul-de-sac in front of their house. What were they doing there?

“Autographs,” a voice said behind her. Claire turned. Matthew peered over her shoulder out the window. “They’re here for me.”

“They are?” Claire said. “Really?” This she had not predicted—that people would know Matthew was staying here, that they would come here, camp out with their cell phones and their iPods, hoping to see him, touch him, talk to him.

“Really,” Matthew said.

“It happens everywhere you go?”

“Everywhere.”

“Your eye looks better.”

“Does it?”

“No,” she said. He smiled, but she knew he was hurting. The problem, she decided, was that they had never had proper closure. Their relationship was a campfire that had smoldered for years; it had not been doused. Matthew was lonely without Bess, he was a hostage to his alcohol addiction, and he was grabbing for Claire because she was stable. Or so he believed. But they couldn’t go back to Wildwood Crest in 1987, no matter how much either of them wanted to.

“What would you like for breakfast?”

“A Bloody Mary.”

“Matthew.”

“I’m kidding.”

“You promised me you’d be sober for tonight.”

“I’m kidding!”

Claire grabbed his arm. Upstairs, she heard Zack crying. “I would make you miserable.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said.

She touched his cheek, carefully, below his black eye.

“I love you, Claire,” he said.

And she said, “I know.”

She was a get-it-done machine. She had yet to nail down a babysitter, but as she was flipping a tower of pancakes for Matthew and the kids, it dawned on her. She stepped outside. The gawkers were gathered on the cul-de-sac like a Greek chorus. Claire approached three teenage girls and asked if any of them could babysit that night. All three had planned to crash the gala to hear Max West sing, but one—the oldest, most together-looking one, Hannah, her name was—agreed to babysit if she could get her picture taken with Max West.

“Done,” Claire said. “We’ll need you at five.”

She was the Energizer Bunny. She was stage manager, den mother, multitasking superwoman. She tied five hundred silver balloons to the backs of chairs, she centered flower arrangements and smoothed tablecloths, she reviewed the timetable with Gavin, she inspected the greenroom—no alcohol in there, right? Right. She folded programs, she called Jason twelve times—Shea had a birthday party from one to three, the present was wrapped, he just had to drop her off and pick her up, and Zack could sleep in the car. J.D. was going to the fiskes’ house; Ottilie was not allowed to wear the eye shadow Matthew had brought, no matter how convincingly she made her case. No TV for the kids today, and no cigarettes for Jason.