Free Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) by Maggie Dana

There’s a speck of mayonnaise on his lower lip. What would he do if I licked it off?
    “Do you have kids?” I ask.
    “A daughter. She lives with her mother.”
    “Did Sophie tell you I was here?”
    “Yes.” Colin puts down his fork, turns to face me. “She wanted to surprise you,” he says, glancing at my ankle. “I’m sorry you fell.” His eyes, soft and warm behind his glasses, are the color of moss.
    “Colin, are you happy?” I blurt out.
    He looks at me, surprised. “Yes, I suppose I am. Shelby and I have been through a lot of ups and downs. I was a wreck when we met, and she helped me pull through.” He pokes at a wedge of cheese. “I owe her for that.”
    “Your marriage was as bad as mine, then.”
    “Did you try a second time?” Colin asks.
    “No.” How do I tell him I’m not brave enough to risk another loss?
    “But what about you, Jilly?” he says. “Are you happy?”
    The clock on Sophie’s mantel ticks off the seconds.
    “I have good friends, a house I love,” I say, swallowing hard. “The beach. My sons. I’m—” I grope for the right word. “I’m content.”
    “Don’t you want more than that?”
    Of course I do. But am I willing to admit it? To Colin? To myself? In a mad moment, I opt for honesty. “I’m fifty-two and there are days I ask myself ‘what else is there? Is this it? Is this all there is to my life?’” It’s hard to believe I’m unloading like this but with Colin it seems so easy. So right, somehow.
    There’s a crash from the kitchen and the mood is broken. Colin sighs, and we move to safer ground—my life in Connecticut and his in Gloucestershire; his dog and my cat. He tells me about North Lodge, his seventeenth-century house in the Cotswold hills that’s now a popular inn and hotel. A bit more than a bed and breakfast, he says.
    I try to explain what I do for a living and discover Colin is only slightly less traumatized by computers than he is by spiders. “I’m a graphic artist,” I say. “I design brochures, logos, and promotion pieces for local businesses.”
    The others drift in from the dining room. Roddy Slade, flushed and overweight, Hugh Neville, almost bald but with that same cheeky smile, and Keith Lombard whose once carroty-red hair is now totally gray. He introduces his wife. Penny Lombard has the sleep-deprived look of a mother whose infant keeps her up all night.
    Roddy produces a digital camera and takes several group shots. He snaps one of Colin and me on the couch. “Give me your e-mail address and I’ll send it to you,” he says, before being waylaid by Sophie to take pictures of the dogs.
    The boys—I still think of them that way—and I laugh over old memories and exchange bits of gossip, but nobody asks Colin why he disappeared without word.
    Hugh and Keith slope off and Penny follows Claudia upstairs. Colin and I are alone. Again.
    “Have you ever been to the States?” I ask.
    “No, but I’ve always wanted to go.”
    “Come over for a holiday.” Christ! Am I really saying this? What the hell. I’ll keep going. “You could stay with me.”
    “That sounds great,” Colin says. “I’ll ask Shelby.”
    Oh yes, Shelby. My face warms, reddens. What was I thinking?
    His eyes lose their sparkle. His voice is distant and I turn away. For him, this has been nothing more than a pleasant interlude—a Sunday afternoon reminiscing about the past with an old friend.
    After the last guest leaves, I round on Sophie. “Why didn’t you warn me he was coming?”
    “And have you go into hiding upstairs with the dogs?” Sophie throws herself into the wing chair and hooks her legs over one of its arms.
    I snatch up a pillow. “I’m not a child.”
    Sophie looks at my ankle, now the size of a small cantaloupe. “Oh, Jill, come on. What would you have done if I’d told you?”
    “For openers, I wouldn’t have fallen down your bloody stairs.”
    “I doubt that,” Sophie says. “You always did have weak knees where