Evercrossed (9 page)

Thirteen

LATE MONDAY MORNING, SPLASHING THROUGH A puddle in the inn's lot, wondering whether Guy had found shelter during a late night storm. Ivy threw a bag with a beach towel and music books into the backseat of the Beetle. "Hey, just in time!"

Ivy jumped at the sound of Guy's voice. "You sure are easy to sneak up on," Guy observed, emerging from the shrubs surrounding the inn's parking lot. "What were you thinking about?"

"Music," she lied—no point in feeding his ego. "I'm headed to practice."

"What direction is that?" Guy asked. His clothes were damp and wrinkled, his backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Chatham. I use the piano at a village church."

"Can I get a ride that far?"

She double clicked her key. "Door's open. Where're you going?" she asked, as he stowed his backpack in the rear seat.

"Lighthouse Beach."

"Have you remembered something?"

"No," he replied. "I was hoping I might if I saw the place." Ivy thought about offering to go with him, but she had come to think of Guy as a cat, a creature who comes to others only when he's ready. Guy was wearing his old shoes again.

As Ivy pulled out of the lot, she glanced through her rearview mirror at the new shoes, still tied to his pack. "Did I get the wrong size?"

He followed her eyes. "Yup. But they make a nice souvenir."

"We can exchange them for a pair that fit," she said. "We could, but that's a lot of trouble. And if you'd like to have them back," he added with a sly smile," I have a hunch they'll fit Will."

"If you'd come into the store with me," she replied brusquely, "I wouldn't have had to guess your size." They didn't speak again till she reached Route 28.

"So ... if you practice music during the summer, you must be pretty serious about it," he said. 

"I am."

He twisted himself around in his seat to reach the books. His arm brushed hers, his body hovering close in the small car. For a moment Ivy felt dizzy, overwhelmed by a powerful sense of his presence.

He grabbed a music book and turned forward again in his seat. She was glad he was thumbing through it and didn't see her biting her lip, trying to focus on the road.

"So, what kind of music do you like?" she asked. "I mean, other than an off key version of 'If I Loved You."

He laughed. "I don't remember, but my favorite band is Providence. No, wait—that's the next town over from the hospital."

She laughed with him. "Will you play for me?" he asked.

The request surprised her. "I play mostly classical."

"Don't worry," he said with a wry smile. "I can't remember what I like."

A few minutes later she parked the car in the church lot. "I need to get the key from the rectory." Guy followed her to a small, shingled building that was attached by a covered passageway to the church. Its windows were open and Ivy could hear the doorbell ringing inside. Then Father John's voice called from behind another building. "In the back!"

Guy, who was wearing jeans, quickly pulled the cuffs of his sweatshirt down to his wrists. They found the priest in the garden, wearing denim overalls, his hands caked with sandy dirt, his high cheekbones shining with sweat and sun.

Ivy introduced him to Guy. Father John held up both hands apologetically and gave a slight bow. "My day off," he explained.

"You're working awfully hard for that," Ivy observed.

He smiled. "A labor of love."

Inside a white picket fence was a large vegetable garden. A trench, partially dug along the outside of the fence, had bags of peat and humus piled next to it.

"I'm putting in roses," he said, gesturing. "Of course, we have the Rugosa—beach roses—here on the Cape. It's very foolish of me to be digging holes in the sand and bringing in black soil to grow
tea
roses." He shrugged and smiled. Ivy saw Guy relax a little. "You're here to play," the priest guessed, reaching for the set of keys that hung on his belt. "Would you bring these back as soon as you've opened up?"

Guy went with Ivy as far as the church door, then offered to return the keys.

Fifteen minutes later, when he hadn't come back to the church. Ivy sighed—sudden departures seemed to be Guy's favorite way of saying good bye. Having finished her exercises, she pushed Guy out of her mind and focused on the new music assigned by her teacher. She worked hard, and her tentative fingering became more certain. Ivy never got over the wonder of feeling a song grow under her hands.

An hour later, gathering up her music, she heard the church door open. Guy walked toward her, looking pleased with himself. "I've got a job."

"You do?"

His face gleamed with perspiration and there was a smear of dirt down the front of his sweat-shirt He pointed in the direction of the garden, his hand coated with sandy soil. "I was helping him out—just for something to do. And he asked if I liked that kind of work. He's going to set me up with one of his parishioners who's looking for summer help."

"Great! He didn't care if you had references?"

"I made up a name and cell phone number," Guy replied.

"What?"

"With a little luck, the man won't bother to check."

"It's just that—" Ivy didn't finish her statement. The bruise on Guy's face had faded beneath his tan and was barely noticeable. It was a breezy morning, and it may not have seemed odd to the priest that Guy hadn't removed his sweatshirt or rolled up his sleeves to work.

"You don't trust me," he said. "Will has been filling your head with doubts—"

Ivy felt defensive of Will. "Don't blame him. I'm quite capable of doubting on my own."

Guy's eyes met hers, then he threw back his head and laughed. "You're so honest!" He sat down in a pew, draping his arms across the back of the bench.

"Play something for me. I have a strong feeling I'm not a classy guy and will be easy to impress."

"The song you were humming was from a musical. I have a pile of Broadway songs home in Connecticut." She flipped through the books she had brought, looking for something light and melodic. "A guy I loved once liked musicals."

"You don't love him anymore?" Ivy met Guy's eyes. "No, I still do. I always will."

"He dumped you," Guy guessed.

"He died."

Guy dropped his arms from the back of the church bench. "I'm sorry—I didn't realize. . . . How?" he asked gently.

"He was murdered."

Guy rose to his feet. "Jesus Christ!" Ivy took a deep breath.

"Is that a prayer? You're in the right place." Guy continued to stare at her, and she made herself busy looking for music. "This'll work— Brahms." She began to play.

Guy circled the piano, still staring at her, his hands in his pockets, then he strolled down the side aisle. He stopped at each stained glass window and seemed to study it.

Was he reading the images or peering through them. Ivy wondered; was he seeing the present or catching glimpses of the past? More than ever, her past with Tristan seemed to intrude into her everyday life.

Focus on the present
, she told herself, and glanced toward Guy.
Focus on someone
who needs your help now
. Maybe the music would relax his mind and allow him to recall bits of what he was repressing.

She finished Brahms, and continued with music she knew by heart: the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Number 14. By the final measures Guy was standing behind her.

"You're playing from memory," he said as the last note faded. Ivy nodded.

"I can't remember my own name," he observed, "but you can play an entire song from memory."

Ivy swallowed hard. Better to have the pain in her heart forever than to lose her memory of Tristan—Guy had taught her that much. "It's a song you love, or maybe one
he
loved." Guy guessed.

Ivy closed the piano and gathered up her pieces of music. "Yes."

'"Moonlight Sonata." Guy said. "The first part of Beethoven's Sonata Fourteen."

Ivy turned to him, surprised. Guy took a step back. "Whoa! How'd I know that?"

They gazed at each other, mirroring amazement, then Ivy smiled. "And you thought you weren't a classy guy!"

IVY AND GUY STOOD AT THE TOP OF THE STEPS BY Chatham Light, the same place Ivy and Will had stood eight days earlier. In the afternoon sun, the wide stretch of sand, more than a quarter mile deep, burned hot and white. The ocean swept past, curving to the south as far as the eye could see, its color like the blue sea glass that Ivy loved.

They had picked up sandwiches and soda at a cafe near the church, and Ivy had given Guy the beach towel she had brought along. "Would you like me to come back in an hour? It's a long walk to Nickerson," she added, "and I'll be driving home in that direction."

Guy kept his eyes on the beach, and after a moment asked, "Would you come with me?" She was careful not to gush
Of course—I was hoping—whatever I can do
to help.
"Sure. I like the beach," she replied, and started down the steps.

Reaching the sand, she stepped aside to let Guy lead the way, not wanting to do anything that might extinguish a spark of memory. She followed him across the beach, removing her shoes as he did when they reached the damp sand, then walking next to him, heading south. Toddlers played at the sea's frothy edge, running back and forth with plastic pails. A father played Frisbee with his kids.

A middle aged woman with wet, spiky hair smiled to herself as she carried her raft from the waves. Beneath a striped umbrella a younger boy played checkers with an older one and let out a shout of victory. Thinking about the way Philip had loved to play the game with Tristan, Ivy turned for another look and saw that Guy had stopped to watch the pair. "You were frowning," Ivy said when they moved on. "I thought—for a moment I thought I knew that kid, the little one."

They strolled on in silence and passed a sign that prohibited swimming from that point south. "The officer who interviewed me said that they found me about fifty yards beyond the no swimming sign."

They walked that distance and Guy stopped to survey the area. "Not very smart of me," he remarked dryly, "to swim at midnight in an area with dangerous currents."

"Are you sure you were swimming?" she asked.

"The doctors said there was enough seawater in me to drown an army."

"Okay, but it's obvious from your injuries you were in some kind of fight. Maybe you were knocked unconscious at the edge of the ocean and the tide came in. Do you know how to swim?" she asked.

He was standing back from the water as if he didn't like the feel of it washing over his feet.

"Doesn't everybody?" he replied.

"No, not everybody." He dropped his eyes.

"The water ... it bothers me. I don't want to get in. It scares me." he admitted, climbing the bank to the dryer sand.

"After what happened to you, it should," Ivy replied, following him, laying the beach towel where he dropped his backpack, about twenty feet beyond the tidal line. "It's okay to be afraid, Guy. Anyone who had nearly drowned would be."

He pulled off his sweatshirt and T-shirt. It took Ivy's breath away, the strength and the vulnerability she saw in him. His back and shoulders were broad and muscular, but his skin a pale, grayish green with fading bruises.

"None of this looks familiar," he said, surveying the distant houses spread beyond the dunes.

He sat on the towel close to Ivy. The desire to put her arms around him, to shield him from the confusion and fear that haunted him, was so strong that she had to look away. Water Angel, help him, she prayed, then asked, "Do you believe in angels?"

"No. Do you?"

"Yes," she said firmly. Peeking sideways, she saw the corners of Guy's mouth curling upward. Tristan had once worn the same amused expression.

"I believe there are people who act like angels," Guy added, "showing up unexpectedly at the moment you need them. Like the little boy who gave me this." He inched in his pocket, pulling out a gold coin stamped with an angel. "He came to my hospital room and started jawing with me like he had known me all his life. There was something about that kid, the way he looked at me—it was as if he could see through me and understood something I didn't."

Ivy took the coin from him. "That kid—he's my brother."

"Your brother." Guy's eyes narrowed, as if he was trying hard to remember something. Ivy's cell phone went off and they both turned toward her bag. After a minute, the familiar ring tone stopped, then it began all over again.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" Guy asked. Ivy handed the coin back to him.

"Later. I, uh, want to get my feet wet," she said, and headed toward the waves.

She felt as if she couldn't fight it anymore than she could fight the sea, this deep connection she felt with Guy. It was a relief to stand in the surf, the ocean rushing against her legs, making her skin cold and tingly. Tristan had taught her to swim, and after Gregory had died, Ivy had taken lessons, becoming an even stronger swimmer.

Still, her feet fought the undertow and her arms prickled with the ocean's spray.

She was both afraid of and seduced by the sea. She stood there for a long time, then moved closer to the shore, crouching to look at a sparkling crescent of shells and pebbles. When she glanced up, Guy was standing ten feet away, watching her so closely she became self conscious. She stood up, and at the same time, he moved toward her, smiling.

"Your hair!" he said.

Feeling the wind tossing it this way and that, she reached back and caught her hair, holding it still. "What about it?"

"You should see it. It's ... wild."

She imagined it looked like kinky gold seaweed blowing in the wind. "Hey, do you see me laughing at yours?"
Not that there is
any reason to
, she thought. His streaky blond hair had a curl to it— like hair an Italian sculptor might give a hero.

Guy laughed, then glanced over his shoulder. Her cell was ringing again. They caught a snatch of it before the breeze carried off the sound. "Same ringtone," he observed. "For some reason, it sounds to me like Will."