Bridge Over the Atlantic (21 page)

~~~~~

“Hi, wanna dance?” The stranger asked right into her ear to make himself heard over the thump, thump of the bass. “I’m Carl.” He held out his hand to shake hers.

Reece had ducked out to go to the ‘ladies room’ as he had called it.

“Hi ya! I’m Mallory.” She shook his hand. At this point in the night she was tipsy but not completely gone.

“Where are you from, Mallory?” Carl had asked.

He seemed nice. He was quite handsome, but not her type at all. He was stocky and blonde, not fat, just stocky. He had a kind face, but there was no spark; she didn’t want to rip his shirt open to check for tattoos she decided. They had discussed the delights of Yorkshire. He had never been, but he had visited London as a teenager and had always loved the accents of the English.

She discovered that Carl was from a place a little distance away called
Port Credit
, near
Toronto
. He was staying with friends in
Kingston
for a short holiday before going back to start a late post grad course in dentistry. That explained his perfect white teeth.

She got drunker and drunker until the DJ played
Someone Like You
, by Adele. Mallory was initially taken aback by hearing this song in a Canadian club, but she soon pushed the random thought from her mind as Carl swayed her to the music.

She looked up into his sparkling grey eyes and suddenly needed intimate physical contact. Not sex, but something more intimate than a hug. He had lowered his face to hers and kissed her chastely on the lips. She had returned his kiss with passion and need. He had seemed shocked but reciprocated anyway. Sadly, she felt nothing but sadness and guilt at her actions as Ryan and Cara looked on.

All the way home in the cab she had sobbed on Ryan’s shirt apologising over and over for her behaviour and for betraying Sam’s memory. What she failed to realise is that they understood and wanted her to stop feeling guilty already.

~~~~~

Once she had forced down the bacon and maple syrup that Renee had brought her, drunk her coffee and freshened herself in the en-suite bathroom, she made her way downstairs to face the music. They were all sitting around the breakfast bar in the kitchen chatting and drinking coffee.

“Ah, here’s my English little sis.” Ryan announced as Mallory appeared in front of them all.

“Morning everyone. Listen I know what I did last night and I wanted to say—”

Ryan held his hands up as he interrupted her, “Mallory. Stop. You have nothing to apologise for. You said sorry around a hundred times last night and you got mascara all over my new shirt.” He laughed

Mallory’s lip quivered. “I…I feel so ashamed.” She put her hands to either side of her face. Tears of embarrassment stung at her eyes.

Ryan walked over and hugged her. “Hey, c’mon, don’t you cry again. This is a clean shirt. I’m warning you.” He smiled down at her. “You have been through so much, honey. We all get it. We know that you can’t be alone forever and we don’t want you to be. That guy last night seemed nice. He gave me his number and asked if I would pass it on. Do you want it?”

“Oh, no! I can’t believe I kissed him. It was
not
good. I didn’t really even think he was attractive. How terrible of me. You must all think I’m such a slut.”

Renee shook her head “We think nothing of the sort, dear. You couldn’t be more wrong.” Renee spoke softly trying to defuse Mallory’s anguish.

Ryan chuckled. “Mallory, will you stop? So you kissed a guy and you didn’t like it—hey didn’t someone write a song about that?” He chuckled at his lame Katy Perry reference. “Next time it may be someone you actually
like
and that’d be cool,” he reassured her.

After the family had spent an hour convincing Mallory that they still loved her, in spite of her kissing a stranger, they convinced her to grab a bag with her bathing suit, sun lotion and a towel. They were taking her to
Alwington beach.

It was a beautiful old beach surrounded by large country estates owned by very wealthy people. Luckily, Renee had friends in high places and so they all went along to sunbathe and splash about in the water.

Mallory enjoyed laying there, sunglasses covering her eyes and the sun beating down on her skin. It had taken some encouraging—getting her to take off her sarong.

Cara tried convincing her that she looked amazing in the navy blue and white spotted one piece bathing suit that she had bought while they were out shopping together.

Ryan picked her up and flung her over his shoulder threatening to throw her into the water unless she relaxed and took off the ‘darn sarong’. She had screamed and laughed all at the same time and eventually conceded.

The Sarong was nearby, a bit like a security blanket. Suddenly, something or someone blocked out her light.

“Hey, Mallory.” She opened her eyes to see Carl standing over her. She sat bolt upright, shocked by his presence. “What a nice surprise to see you in daylight.” He smiled, genuinely pleased to see her.

“Oh…erm…hi, Carl.” She took off her sunglasses and nervously squinted up at him.

Obviously he noted her scrunched up facial expression. He sat on the lounger beside her. He was wearing long board shorts and flip flops. His hair was damp and swept back.

“I saw you from all the way over there where my friends are and thought it was you, so I came over to check and here you are.”

“Here I am.” Mallory laughed sheepishly remembering their kiss.

“I gave your brother…brother? That guy Ryan anyway, I gave him my number to pass onto you. You looked kinda upset after we…danced.” He rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb.

“Oh yes, thank you, Carl. But the thing is I’m only here for a short time. I don’t think it’s a good idea to get into anything…you know…”

He looked disappointed but nodded his acquiescence.

“Hey, we could be friends though right? I could take you for coffee maybe while you’re here?” He looked hopeful.

Mallory sighed and briefly looked down at the ground as if the courage she needed was there. “Carl, look, I should maybe come clean. I don’t know what came over me last night. I’m grieving for my Canadian fiancé who was killed on his way to our new life in
Scotland
in April. I’m here staying with his family. I really needed something physical last night. That’s not like me. I’m so sorry for dragging you into my misery. It was unfair.”

Carl exhaled puffing his cheeks out as he did. “Wow, okay. I’m so sorry to hear about your fiancé. That must have been tough. Look, I like you and I totally get that you maybe don’t want an emotional or romantic thing at the moment, but that’s okay. I would still like to take you for coffee. And maybe we could be…I don’t know, pen pals?” He laughed. He was such a nice guy. “I know at twenty-eight I may be a little old for a pen pal but it’d be kinda fun, don’t you think?”

Mallory smiled, but her insides churned with guilt and sadness, “I just don’t want to lead you on, Carl. I will never be interested you in any other way than as a friend.” She felt unsure about the prospect of staying in touch with him.

“Look, I get it. You have been honest with me and I respect that. Here, this is my card. My cell number is on there and my email. You could add me as a friend on
Facebook
too if you have it.” She took his card. She had never really understood the
Facebook
thing. Why would she be interested in what someone had for breakfast? Or why would she care about the people that brag about their perfect lives, when under the surface there were cracks? But maybe she should give it a go? She had made friends in Canada. It’d be nice to have an easy way to keep in touch. Snail mail wasn’t an option these days.

“Thanks, Carl, that’s really sweet of you.” She put the card into her beach bag.

He held out his hand to her. “Friends?”

“Friends.” She shook his hand.

“Gimme a call if you wanna go for that coffee,” he shouted as he walked back to his friends. She waved her acknowledgement.

Ryan came over to check on her. “You okay? That was the guy from the club, huh?”

“Yeah, but he was nice. I apologised and explained. He says he’s happy to be friends.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Poor guy. Believe me, any guy who looks at a girl the way he looked at you is living in desperate hope of a change of heart. He says he’s happy to be friends but in ‘Man’ that translates as ‘I will adore you from afar, I will never give up.’”

He smiled and gestured behind him. “C’mon, the water is…ahhh…okay I won’t lie, it’s freezing, but not too bad once you get in.” He ran off to grab Cara and pull her into the water with him. She squealed with delight as he picked her up and spun her around before depositing her into the icy waters of
Lake Ontario
.

Mallory put her shades back on and lay back on her lounger. Greg sprang to her mind. He had given her the ‘happy to be friends’ speech and then had gone off and picked up some random girl who now seemed to have taken up half-naked residence in his house.

She mentally slapped herself as the thoughts whizzed through her mind.
What right have you got to judge him? He’s single. He’s attractive. He’s a man and men, like women, have needs. So he’s screwing an Addam’s family reject, what is it to you? You don’t want him. You just don’t want anyone else to have him.

She recoiled at the barrage from her subconscious. Was that the problem? She wanted him to want her. She liked feeling wanted; but didn’t like it when his attentions were clearly aimed at someone else.

Mallory’s heart pounded as she thought through and analysed her reaction to seeing Trina at Greg’s house. Immediately another snide comment sprang forth.
He’s only known her two minutes. What kind of man moves a woman into his house after that long? A desperate, pathetic, sad and lonely man, that’s what.
She shook her head as if doing so would eradicate the mental altercation between the two parts of her psyche.
And anyway, you don’t know that she’s moved in for goodness sake
. She stood up, threw her glasses down and ran straight for the cold water. That was one way to derail her current destructive train of thought.

~~~~~

The days seemed to fly by and before she knew it she was down to her last three days with the Buchanan family. It had been such a wonderful experience. And in some ways she felt that being there without Sam gave her a sense of closure. She knew now that what she had with Sam was extra special, but that she didn’t want to give up on love entirely. She saw the way that Cara and Ryan looked at each other and the way they looked at their baby son. She had listened to stories of Sam’s dad from Renee. The fondness with which she spoke about Bill Buchanan made Mallory want to love again.

Sam had always been obsessed with her happiness and had even made her cry once by insisting that if ever anything happened she should move on and re-marry.
Re
-marry. If only she had married in the first place.

Thursday brought rain and lots of it. The family spent a fun day indoors playing on the games consoles and sitting at the table playing cards. Mallory had wowed them with her poker skills and had taken almost all of their matchsticks. Ryan insisted that the next time she came over there would be a re
match—
then
he had apologised for the bad pun.

Thursday evening they had decided to go and eat out. They had toyed with the idea of several different restaurants, but couldn’t agree on a single one. Mallory had been listening to Renee and Ryan arguing over the Steak House on King Street, which Ryan championed, and the Japanese place on Division Street that was Renee’s choice.

“Can we go to Aqua Terra, please?” Mallory’s voice was small, but they all turned to look at her. “I…I would really like to go there. It would be hard, but I feel I need to go there before I go home.”

Renee immediately picked up the phone and rang the restaurant to speak to the owner.

Their table was booked for eight and she had worn the red dress that she had bought back in
Scotland
. When they arrived her senses were bombarded with the sights, sounds and aromas from the night almost exactly a year ago when Sam had proposed. The music was the same. It drifted through the air and transported her back in time to that happy evening.

Mallory was understandably quiet throughout dinner. Renee kept squeezing her hand to ensure that she was okay. Mallory nodded each time. Eventually, when dinner was done, Ryan asked her to dance. He took her hand and led her to the dance floor. He held one hand at the small of her back and Mallory’s right hand in his left as they swayed to the sounds of ‘
That’s Life’
by good old Frank Sinatra. The lyrics seemed somehow apt and Mallory smiled as she leaned her head on Ryan’s shoulder. She didn’t cry, even though she had thoroughly expected to. At least that was some kind of progress.

~~~~~

Friday came around too soon and Mallory was packing her suitcase. Renee knocked on the bedroom door and entered.

“Hi, Darling. I just wanted to check that you are okay?”

“I’m fine thanks, Renee. I’m just trying to figure out how to get all this stuff in my suitcase.” She smiled.

Renee began to her assist her with the mammoth task of folding.

“I hope this time away from home has been helpful to you, honey.” Renee touched Mallory’s arm.

“I’ve loved being here, Renee. I’ve felt closer to Sam. But I feel I’ve been able to deal with my grief easier being amongst all of you.”

Renee nodded. “It’s been good to have you here. I think it’s helped all of us too. Losing Sam was so difficult, but we made a pact as a family not to dwell on the sadness.” She sat down on the bed, “Sam was so full of life. He would hate us all sitting around crying and gnashing our teeth. This leads me onto something else.”

Renee paused and fiddled with the hem of a top she was folding. “He always told me that if ever he died suddenly, or after an illness of some kind, that he wanted people to wear bright colours and laugh. I just didn’t want to do that at the time. But, I hope you don’t mind, I invited some of his friends around tonight for a kind of memorial service.” Renee cringed as she awaited Mallory’s response.