Accidental Happiness (25 page)

25

Reese

I
n the thin light of the Ship’s Store storage room, Reese tried to memorize Charlie’s features. She lay on top of a large, vinyl seat cushion that had long ago been discarded off someone’s boat. Most likely Charlie, or somebody like him, had left it in the back room of the store for the purpose of such spontaneous encounters.

She wore the beaded chain belt that she’d had on with her skirt—that, and nothing more.

“Leave it on,” he’d said when she reached to unfasten it, her blouse and skirt already in a heap on the floor. “I like that on you.”

She’d felt the delicate, metal filigree rubbing between them as they came together. The very slight discomfort it caused brought her nerves to their finest edge. Afterward, she realized she’d never look at the belt again without thinking of Charlie.

“I need to get back out there,” he said, sitting beside her, making no move to stand. “But damn! I can’t leave you in here. Not looking like this.”

She stayed on her back, the cool vinyl pressed against warm skin. She liked for him to look at her. She liked what she read in his face. She didn’t want to think about what might come. A time when someone staring at her body would mean pity, rather than desire. But it hadn’t come to that. Not yet. And with Angel off at the grocery store with Lane, she was free to deny everything else in her life. If only for a little while.

She thought of Lane with Angel, hoped their time together would help Lane make up her mind. Lane had seemed pleased at her request, said she’d have to think about it from all different angles before she could agree.

“You are some kind of pretty,” Charlie said. “I could lose my job if I don’t get back to work, though.”

“That young guy helping you can hold everything down out there a little longer,” she said. “He seems responsible. I think you’ve got a little more to finish here before we bother putting our clothes on.”

“I told him I was getting a roll of paper for the cash register.” He grinned. “I’m supposed to be in charge.”

“Who says you’re not in charge?” Just barely touching him, she ran her nails along the tender skin of his waist.

“Oh darlin’,” he said, breathing hard. “I think we both know you’re running this show. But what the fuck? I’m not complaining.”

She looked at him, his tanned skin contradicting the light coloring of his hair. Even in the low light of a partially boarded up window, she could see the pale green of his eyes. As he bent toward her, giving in, she reached up. With light fingers, she touched his collarbone, his mouth. She vowed again to memorize him, to appreciate every second, every small moment of his body. She’d store up images that would outlast anything bad the future had to offer.

26

Gina

I
passed the road to Mt. Sinai on my way to the rental cottage. I couldn’t see the church, but I could make out part of the cemetery on the higher rise. I thought of Benjamin. He’d like to see me beginning to feel life again. For months I’d thought it impossible. I could see the world through a one-way mirror, but I couldn’t reach it, and I couldn’t be seen. I was almost afraid to trust that it was changing.

Georgie moved around, restless in the back of the car, looking for food that had been dropped and ignored. I’d swung by to get her after leaving Dr. Jenson’s, had hauled her into the Volvo without a walk, and she’d sulked on the floorboard for half the ride.

But her pity party had ended and she jumped up on the backseat. Although the air conditioner running full-blast barely cooled the car, I left a back window partially open for her. She stuck her nose out to take in the smells. Even when the days went to 90 degrees or more, I couldn’t bear to take this pleasure away.

I’d tried to call Maxine, but her cell wasn’t on and the phone at the cottage was busy. I decided to take a chance and ride on out, see if she was still there.

Her car fit only halfway under the carport that sat underneath the house. Like most waterfront structures, the cottage had been built on stiltlike supports, to accommodate storm surges in the tide. Any normal car would have tucked neatly under, fully in the shade. But Maxine’s extended outward, looked like an adult in a child’s playhouse.

The cottage was fronted by deepwater shoreline. Prime real estate. The dock and the boathouse added property beyond the waterline, and a screened-in room on top of the boathouse had offered Ben an option for make-out territory when he struck up summer romances. We’d made use of it ourselves a few times.

“I never got this lucky up here in high school,” he told me late one night—after we’d slipped out of the cottage, where every move was audible from every other room in the house.

I looked out toward the side yard. The property line was defined by a marsh creek that emptied into the larger water. The place looked like a miniplantation existing on its own little peninsula.

“Come in!” Maxine called out when I employed the large brass door knocker.

“Hey,” she said, after I found her in the largest bedroom, organizing towels in the closet used for linens. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until the morning.”

“I thought I’d ride out and lend a hand,” I lied. “I tried to call, but the line here was busy.”

“One of the cleaning girls was having it out with her boyfriend. I kept hearing her dial again after he apparently hung up on her. I just sent them off about twenty minutes ago.” She looked around and made a face. “They were talking more than they were cleaning, anyway. I swear you’d never know they came at all.”

The place looked fine to me, but I kept my mouth shut; didn’t want to spoil her righteous indignation.

“So, did you tell her she could move in?” Maxine avoided saying Reese’s name whenever possible.

“I did, and she seemed grateful.” Again I lied. “She’ll be at the real estate office in the morning.”

As before, I was struck by Maxine’s transformation. Even in everyday cleaning clothes she looked animated and young. She wore Capri pants with a man’s button-down shirt. I wondered if the shirt belonged to her CPA friend. The pants looked new, and I guessed they would have to be. She was a couple of sizes smaller than she’d been at Ben’s funeral.

“You look great,” I said. Not a lie.

“It’s having someone.” She smiled. “It changes everything.” She stopped folding for a moment. “But then, I’d say you know that firsthand. You’re looking a lot better yourself.”

“Want a soda?” I grinned, not taking the bait.

“Fine. You don’t have to tell me . . . yet. But I want you to know I’m happy for you.”

“Seriously. It’s too early to say anything,” I said, feeling a little guilty for trivializing my time with Derek. But it
was
early and I did want to be cautious. “But you’re right,” I added. “I do feel better than I have since . . .” I didn’t need to finish. She knew.

She worked on putting stacks of blankets and sheets on the closet shelves. From the back, she was ageless . . . twenty . . . forty . . . fifty, younger than her actual age, for sure.

“Here, let me help,” I said, watching her struggle to reach the highest shelf. I took the cotton blankets and put them away. “Wasn’t the cleaning service supposed to do all this?”

“They just throw things in, any old way,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’d rather do it myself.” She finished before I could reach her. On the floor, I saw a large department-store box. It looked like a shirt box, only bigger, with dates scrawled on the top in marker.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Old pictures. From when Ben was a kid.”

We both stared at it, as if it might explode at the slightest touch.

“Why’d you leave them here?” I tried to sound casual, but my voice wasn’t cooperating. It cracked on the last word, gave the question a manic quality.

“Don’t worry, hon,” she said. “I don’t plan to go through them now. I don’t think I could. But they are all the pictures from before Ben’s father took off. He’s either in them or took them. I didn’t even want the box in my house. Just the thought of it—” She stopped, took a deep breath. “But I didn’t want to throw it out either. I thought Ben might want them someday. And now . . . Well, now I don’t quite know what to do with them.”

We both looked at the box again. The sound of a passing boat measured the silence as it faded with growing distance. I thought of the pictures, loose and jumbled in a box; kept for someone who would never have them. And there was nothing I could say to make that thought easier for either of us. So I stayed quiet.

The air-conditioning hummed, hermetically sealed us off from the water and the marsh that existed just yards away. Early spring and late fall were the best times at the cottage, I recalled. With the windows and doors open to the screens, the coastal landscape permeated the pastel rooms, made them part of something large and unnamed.

“I have all that stuff of Ben’s in storage,” I said finally, hitting upon an idea. “Why don’t I take the pictures there?”

“That would solve my problem,” she said, sounding as relieved as I felt.

“Let me take them to the car now, so I don’t forget.” I picked up the box. Just before I got out the door, Maxine called out to me from the kitchen.

“As odd as it sounds,” she said, “I’m going to make a pot of coffee. Want some?”

I needed to talk to her. Sitting in the kitchen with coffee might provide the best opportunity, I reasoned.

“Sure,” I said.

“Regular or decaf?” she offered.

“I went to journalism school. I don’t do decaf.”

“That’s my girl,” she said. “In that case, would you like a little bourbon thrown in?”

“Even better.” I took the box and put it in the back of my car.

The sun had gotten low; spread large over the property. But the house had fallen into the shadows. We sat at the table, booze and coffee sending mixed messages to my brain.

“Listen,” I began. “I need to talk with you about something.”

She tilted her head slightly by way of acknowledgment. Waited. I didn’t know exactly how to begin. Every question seemed a larger opening to Pandora’s box.

“Did you know anything about Reese having an illness?”

“Sure,” she answered without hesitation, as if I should have known it too. “I didn’t know the full extent of it until she was well gone—thank God—but it worried me to no end. I was sure she’d come back and play on his sympathy. That’s the one thing I’ll give her credit for. She stayed gone, finally. Let him get on with his life. He’d carried so much of that marriage to begin with that I was afraid . . . But that’s old history now. She seems to be doing okay.”

“Well,” I said, trying to decide how much to tell her. “I’m not sure. I saw some pills, quite a lot of pills, really, that she had in her bag. My doctor said they would be used to treat MS.”

Maxine sat back, took a sip of her coffee, seemed to be staring at something outside, but there was nothing to see. I wondered what vision might be in her head. Finally, she spoke. “That makes some sense. MS.” She said it as if she’d missed something obvious.

“What did you think she had?”

“I didn’t know, exactly. She’d been sent to a neurologist, so I knew it was something related to that. And I think she fell once or twice, fractured her shoulder the last time. The doctor suggested Ben get somebody out to the house. A physical therapist, or maybe a nurse trained to deal with whatever it was. The woman came every day during the week. I only found out about the nurse, or whatever she was, because she answered the phone when I called, and I asked Ben who she was. Apparently Reese wasn’t too thrilled with her being there. I know Ben got frustrated that Reese wasn’t even trying to cooperate with her.

“As far as the illness went, Ben said Reese didn’t want him talking about it, so I let it be. I thought it had passed, though. I didn’t think she was still sick when she left. But if it was MS, I guess that doesn’t just up and go away.”

“Do you think Ben knew everything?”

“I’m sure he did. I always figured that’s why he went looking for her when she left, over and over. And why he kept helping her every time she called. You know he did that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. But that was just Ben. You knew she went back and forth, leaving him?”

She nodded. “It went on for weeks. Ben was out of his mind.”

“She told me about the times he went to bring her back. That he found her in Myrtle Beach, then in D.C., I think. Two or three places, he found her.” I left out the story about the other men. Maxine already hated her, and she’d heard the confusion over Angel’s paternity. No need to fuel any more of that anger.

“Well, he never talked too much about it—to me, at least. I caught the gist of it. But he knew how I felt about her. So, maybe he just didn’t want me to weigh in. But at some point he just gave up. Sick or not sick, he couldn’t be responsible for her forever. She was bad news for my son. When she divorced him, I was glad. When he married you, it was the happiest day of my life. I mean it, Gina. Even happier than the day he was born. So many worries went flying out the window that day. I knew that no matter what he felt he owed Reese, he’d never leave you to give it to her. He was safe the day he married you.”

She made me sound larger than life. A mythical guardian. But maybe she was right. Ben needed protection from his own nature as much as anything else. He never believed in the existence of lost causes.

“Did he love me, Maxine?” It was a stupid question. Like asking your parents if you’re smart, just to hear them say yes.

She looked over at me, smiled as if I was joking. Of course I knew the answer, but lately I hadn’t felt it. Not the way I’d believed it every night listening to Ben sleep.

“Gina,” she said, her words careful, deliberate. “I know you now, and I love you like a daughter. But I loved you before I even met you because of the way Ben felt. You were his partner. I think he loved you so much it surprised him.”

“But he loved Reese too. I know he did. And that shouldn’t bother me because it had nothing to do with me, but it does and—”

“I won’t argue with you,” she interrupted. “But it was a different kind of love. It was what you feel when you rescue an animal or volunteer at a hospital. Ben wanted to save the world, and the best place to start was Reese. He fell into rescuing Reese and it got to the point where I don’t think he could tell the difference between that and love. He’d been so used to pairing love with worry, pity. With you, he felt free to be happy. Like I said, you were his partner. I never saw him happier.”

His
partner.
Funny, I’d always felt a few paces behind him. For the first time, it occurred to me that with her illness, Reese must have felt she had miles to go before she even began to catch up.

“The only thing that kept your wedding day from total perfection was Ben’s insistence on including his father.”

Even on a reserved day, Maxine allowed herself to be more open, more unguarded, than most people. With late afternoon fatigue and a little alcohol settling in, she wasn’t holding anything back.

“But the second he put that ring on your finger, he was free of her. He would never have left her. But when she left and he couldn’t do anything about it, honest to God, I think he felt more relief than anything else. He’d never have said it, but I believe that’s true. And even after it was over, if he’d known about Angel . . . Oh, I hate to think what would have happened.”

I started to say it; it seemed that I should tell her about Ben and Angel. But at the moment, I knew it would be too much. My gut, every instinct I had, told me that. I’d have to tell her—and soon. But not on a night when she was living inside her memories at the cottage. She needed for everything she remembered about Ben to stay intact for a little while longer. I knew, firsthand, the consequences of having to rewrite history after someone has left you, gone out of your reach.