When he saw Valerie’s car parked behind the inn, Dennis felt a great relief. Despite her promises over the phone, he hadn’t really believed she would show up. It was only four but already dark on this January afternoon. As he pulled into a space three down from her car, he realized she was still sitting in the driver’s seat. He rushed over and pulled open her door, eager to embrace her. She did not get out, pointing past him.
“I’m late,” he apologized. “I even left work earlier than I said I would, but the traffic in the city was awful.” He wouldn’t ask when she left, not wanting to remind her what she had done, assuming she had begun her drive minutes after James and the boys set off on their fishing trip.
“Look,” she said, still pointing. Dennis followed her fingertips, tilting his head to gaze upward.
“Have you ever seen stars like that?”
Thousands glittered in a clear sky, shapes of constellations whose names he had forgotten, stars in every direction, arcing past the tall trees at the edge of the village. For an instant they made him uneasy, so many, overwhelming. Then he thought to say, “It’s being out in the country. Beautiful. We made a brilliant choice.” They had chosen the inn from a guide, in a place where they knew no one, where no one would know them.
Dennis offered a hand, tentative, like a test, half expecting her to shake her head, pull the door shut, and drive off. He held his breath until she let him guide her out onto the gravel drive. He wrapped arms around her, and she fell into his embrace with a sob. He looked at her face, the glint of her blue eyes, first thinking they reflected the stars, then realizing it was the light over the inn’s sign. She kissed him, long and deep, his hand in her hair, her fingertips touching his face.
Finally, Valerie whispered. “It’s chilly. Why don’t we go inside?”
He breathed the scent of a fireplace, saw chimney smoke wafting over the thatched roof. “It looks cozy.”
They had only overnight bags, and Dennis carried both. At the desk he signed his name and address on the registration card, listing only his car make and license plate number. A very young clerk, the owner’s teenage daughter Dennis assumed, welcomed them with a smile and handed him a key linked to a wooden block engraved with the room number.
Up a flight of stairs, back along a dim corridor, he led the way to the room. Hands trembling, he unlocked the door and flipped the light switch. All the furnishings looked antique, the wooden chest, the four-poster bed with a quilted spread, the tin lamp in the beamed ceiling. Window panes reflected their presence, and Valerie hurried to close the blinds.
Within seconds they were in each other’s arms, pulling at their clothing, quickly naked, making love, the room alive with his moans, her gasps, the bedboards creaking. When they finally lay in a still embrace, she said, her mouth close to his ear, “They all must have heard us.”
“Who’s they?”
“Everyone in this inn. That girl.”
“Then they’re sick with envy.”
Valerie took his wrist to look at his watch. It was past seven. “I can’t eat here. People looking at us.”
He would have liked that, others thinking they were a couple, husband and wife. But he nodded. “All right. We’ll see what else is in the village.”
They showered, dressed, and went down to the lobby, Valerie already out the door when he handed the room key to the girl. Dennis waited for a secret signal, a sly smile, but the girl just nodded.
When he saw Valerie standing on the side of the road, he wrapped an arm around her and said, “Which way?” She pointed ahead toward a cluster of cottages down a slight incline, lights glowing in their windows. Behind them, he made out the silhouettes of sheep on a hillside, unmoving in the moonlight. The air felt pure and fresh.
“Would you like to live in a place like this?” he asked, careful not to imply us, though that was his wish, the two of them away from their old lives.
“It’s very pretty,” she said, “but I’d feel so isolated. And it would end up boring for the children. ”
Dennis didn’t comment, regretting having brought up the subject, telling himself he should concentrate on this weekend and pretend that Monday would never come. He took her hand, relieved when she squeezed his fingers.
The village had no sidewalks, just a cobblestone strip at the edge of the pavement. The stone cottages were old, the roofs thatched, lace curtains in the windows, pewter and crockery arranged on the sills. Every now and then he saw the glow of a television screen and wondered how people spent their lives here, if coziness were the answer.
Valerie stopped to look up at the stars. “I can’t believe how magnificent the sky is.” He leaned forward to give her a quick kiss of affection.
He noticed an outdoor lamp at the end of a narrow path to their left. “That might be something.” As they approached, a brighter light flicked on, shining down on them, set off by an electric eye. They found themselves on the main road, a marker pointing toward the larger towns in both directions. But the traffic was light at this hour, occasional headlights appearing from around a bend, the vehicle rushing past and disappearing around another curve. Dennis thought they were all going too fast, in a hurry to be someplace else.
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