East Hope (10 page)

Mary Beth sparkled with energy when she came home to Habliston for the last time at the end of May. It was as if she had forgotten why Will was leaving the college, as if the move to New York had been part of their plans all along. The weather had warmed and the air had taken on a softness, a harbinger of summer. The trees had leafed out. The evenings were scented with freshly mowed lawns. The voices of children allowed to play outside after supper floated in from the sidewalks.

Their first spring in their house had been magical. One night Mary Beth had come home from work to find Will painting their bedroom. After his morning class he had rushed home to get started, wanting to surprise her. It was her favorite color, hydrangea blue. In her hurry to thank him she had rushed into his arms, spattering both of them with paint. “You're a dream, Will Harmon, an absolute dream,” she had said. That summer he laid the stones for the patio, and she planted three hydrangeas to celebrate their third anniversary.

The hydrangeas had grown into large shrubs, but when they bloomed this July, new owners would be living in the house. Will had done everything on his wife's list. The papers were signed for the attorney so that the house settlement could take place without their presence the following month. The funds would be wired to their separate accounts. Mary Beth had always insisted that they divide everything equally. This was generous on her part, as most of the down payment on their home had come from her sales bonuses. The moving van was coming a few days later, and Will had arranged for a service to do the final housecleaning.

Since the kitchen utensils were packed, Will suggested going to dinner at Landini's, an Italian restaurant on the way out to Travers Lake. The college was closed for the summer, but the restaurant had never been popular with the academic community, and Will knew the chance of running into any of his colleagues would be slight. Jack had told no one about his resignation or what had caused it, but he doubted that Jennifer Whitely would keep it to herself. News traveled quickly in small academic worlds. They arrived at the restaurant at seven thirty. The sky was still light.

“The Japanese people are awfully nice, once you get used to all the bowing,” Mary Beth said. “They're pretty formal, though, not at all like doing business in the U.S. Drew says Mr. Yoguschi thinks I do wonders with numbers. He was totally wowed by my first presentation.”

“Are you ready to order?” Will asked. They had already requested drinks from their waitress, one of the regulars Will recognized. This was the restaurant that he had frequented when Mary Beth was away.

“Are you listening to me?” she asked.

“Of course I am.”

Before he could reassure his wife further, the waitress appeared with their wine. She set two very full glasses of merlot on the table without spilling a drop and then lit the candle stuck into the Chianti bottle at the center of their table. “Romantic touch. Right?” Middle-aged, with a thick waist and black hair that looked too shiny to be natural, she pulled her order pad from her apron pocket. Her name tag said, DORIS. “Let me guess.” She grinned at Will. “The steak platter, medium-rare, baked potato instead of fries, blue cheese on the salad?”

He grinned sheepishly and nodded.

“You must come here a lot,” Mary Beth said.

“And for the lady?” She turned to Mary Beth, ignoring her remark, her pencil poised to write. The restaurant was busy that night. There were several tables of families. A chunky baby sat in a high chair at the table behind them. Will realized that he should have chosen a more romantic spot.

“I'll have the veal with lemon. For the salad, house dressing, but I'd like it on the side.” Mary Beth looked at Will, eyebrows pitched a little higher, as if asking what sort of place he had brought her to. He imagined that Landini's was not as upscale as most of the restaurants in New York she had told him about.

“Thanks, Doris,” Will said. He smiled at Mary Beth, thinking of his idea for the summer. He might have given up on the college, but he wasn't going to give up on her.

“Japan sounds great,” he said. “I'm glad it's going so well.”

“It's not easy,” she said. “God, the jet lag. Still, it's worth the effort. Once this company is on board, well, there's no telling where we'll go. My stock options are going to be worth . . .” She looked down in her lap and picked up her BlackBerry on the banquette next to her. “Just a sec.”

Will watched her face as she studied the message on the device. Who was trying to reach her on a Saturday night? Her mouth curled gently upward with the hint of a smile. She pressed a few buttons, put the device down, and tilted her head. Her face was flushed. She looked happy.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Just Drew. It's not important. I'll e-mail when we get back to the house.”

If it's not important,
Will thought,
why bother her now?
Didn't this guy know she had a husband, a life outside of work? He reached for his wine. He was getting sick of hearing Drew this, Drew that, and stories about all these other people he hadn't even met.

Doris arrived with their salads, and after offering grinds of pepper, as if it were an upscale place, she left them alone.

“June's going to be frantic, but I don't think July will be as bad,” Mary Beth said while drizzling the smallest amount of dressing across her salad. “Some friends in our building in the city have a place out on Long Island. They wanted to know if we could come out for the Fourth. The entire weekend. It sounds like a gorgeous place, and—”

“I wanted to talk about the summer,” Will said, glad to have this topic introduced. “This will be our tenth anniversary.”

“Mmm,” she said, her mouth full. She swallowed and picked up her glass. “You're right, darling.” She reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. “Here's to us.”

Will lifted his glass and took a quick sip. “I have an idea. Our honeymoon, remember?”

“Of course I remember. Maine. Gooseberry Cove.” She grinned more fully, drank again, and put the glass down.

“I thought we could go back.”

“This summer?”

“Yeah, to celebrate.” An image of Mary Beth then, her hair longer, wearing a blue sweater she had worn, flashed in his mind. She was as lovely now as then.

“It's awfully far away.”

“You're due several weeks' vacation. I thought that at the end of the summer you could come up. I've already found a great place.”

Before Mary Beth could say anything else he told her about the ad in
Down East
and how he had called about Taunton's Used Books. He explained that the owner, an elderly man, had had a stroke and that his daughter hoped to find someone to run the bookstore for the summer. The building had an apartment upstairs. Not only would they have a free place to stay, but he might also make some money.

As he spoke Mary Beth looked more and more amazed. She had stopped eating her salad and leaned back against the seat of the banquette.

“I can't believe what you're saying.” She shook her head slowly, and just as she was about to speak, the waitress appeared with their entrées. “Can I get you anything else?” she said, once the plates were lowered before them.

Mary Beth shook her head.

“I'll finally have time to write my novel,” Will said. “I've always loved bookstores. I'll be running a business. You can come up on weekends and at the end of the summer, for our anniversary.” He picked up his fork and knife and cut firmly into the steak.

“You're serious?” Her plate of veal cooled in front of her.

“Of course I am.”

“You don't know the first thing about running a business,” she said, her voice level, without enthusiasm.

“I worked in Dad's hardware store.”

“If you wanted to work in a bookstore, there are bookstores all over New York.”

“I know that. Geez, Mary Beth. This is about Maine. I'll have something to do this summer, and we can be together there. Remember our honeymoon? You loved it.” Will's idea, to him so perfect, so filled with possibility, started to collapse like a sailboat caught on the ocean when the wind dropped and the sails luffed in a sudden calm.

“You want to do this because you're angry with me. Because I didn't want to get into your ridiculous mess at the college.”

“That's over with,” he said. “Jennifer's got her grade. I'm out of a job.”

“And you're taking it out on me.” She picked up her silverware and started to pick at her dinner.

“No. That's not it at all.”

“Isn't it?”

“Don't you see? I just want us to go back to where we were happy.” He put his fork down. “Besides, you're hardly going to be in New York. I thought that instead of just hanging around the apartment—”

“I see. It's all my fault. Here I'm working like a crazy person so my husband who feels sorry for himself can go hide away in Maine.”

“I thought if we could just go back . . .”

Mary Beth pushed away her plate. The baby behind them began to cry. “That's exactly the problem. You always want to go back. I moved to New York for a future. You're stuck in the past. Habliston is over. You need to get going on the rest of your life.”

“Please. I was thinking of us.”

“Were you?”

Will could feel anger rising in him, coming up and taking him by the throat. He swallowed hard. “Why should I be in New York all summer? You're always telling me to write. Here's a great opportunity. Why does it matter if I go to Maine to do it for a few months? Christ, I want you to come.”

She leaned forward toward Will and rested her hands on the table. Her nails were very red on the cloth. “So this means you're not coming to New York?”

“I need to do this, Mary Beth. I want you to come when you can. I know you're working hard for us, for our future. I'm thinking about that too.”

“The point is, you agreed to move to New York. Now you're backing out.”

He lowered his voice. “I just want the summer, one fucking summer.” The family behind them got up to leave. Will waited. “You won't even know I'm gone. You're so busy with work, with what's-his-name. Drew? Drew, the big boss.” Will felt uneasiness rise in him after saying the name. The memory of trying to reach Mary Beth in LA returned.

His last comment silenced her. He watched the mother carrying her baby walk toward the door. What would their lives be like if they'd had a child, a baby to hold them together? Mary Beth had wanted to wait to have a family. The years had slipped by. There was always another deadline, another sales quota she wanted to make. He had never pushed the matter. His life at the college was full, like a family of its own.

Mary Beth sat opposite him now, her mouth pressed in a straight line. She said nothing. Part of him wanted to take her in his arms and make them both forget all this unpleasantness. He wanted to erase the mistakes they had made, to begin all over again.

They finished their dinner in silence, the bustle and noise of a busy Saturday night all around them. While they waited for the bill she spoke at last.

“Fine. Go to Maine. See if you can figure out what you want.”

“I want you,” he said softly.

“Do you? I'm not so sure.” She got up from the table and told him she'd meet him at the car.

Three days later Will left Pennsylvania. He stopped once in New York to drop off two boxes of fragile china that Mary Beth had not wanted to put into storage. It was early afternoon and Mary Beth was at work. The doorman let him in. He barely glanced at the apartment that would soon be his home, but immediately left the city and drove north up I-95. He avoided the exits for Portland and veered left following the Maine Turnpike toward Augusta and points Down East. He stretched his mouth open and tried to ease the tension that had crept into his jaw. The events of the last month continued to surface in his mind as he drove farther and farther away from his old life. What had he set in motion? His back hurt. Shifting in his seat, he wondered what ached more, his back or his heart?

“Y
ou're sure you want to sell?” Hollis Moody asked. Caroline had arrived in the elderly lawyer's office in East Hope that morning after having spent the night at a bed-and-breakfast in Belfast. She had been a few minutes late, not having allowed quite enough time to navigate the winding country roads.

He had pulled up a chair for her before seating himself behind the desk. His shoulders were stooped, but his eyes, a watery blue behind thick tortoiseshell glasses, were watchful. Clearly Hollis Moody was a no-nonsense man, with his steel gray hair in a crew cut, faded seersucker suit, and navy blue rep tie, the kind of tie her father would have worn. He looked the part of a frugal, clearheaded New Englander, a man you could count on.