Her Dear and Loving Husband (4 page)

James looked at Levon. For the first time that night he was annoyed with the young man. “You don’t believe that people, human or otherwise, can overcome their violent tendencies?” he asked. 

“I don’t.”

“No matter how much they want to change? No matter how resolved they are? Are we victims of some predetermined destiny? I knew some people who thought that way once. They weren’t a pleasant group to live around.”

“I think if you’re mean you’re mean and if you’re not you’re not.”  

 “You’ve been watching too many horror movies,” Jeremy said. He didn’t try to hide his disdain. He closed his textbook and shut down his notebook computer. He looked at the time, at the door, at the window. Then he began texting on his cell phone. James didn’t stop him.

“If I knew a hot vampire like Edward or Bill I’d give them as much of my blood as they wanted,” Trisha said. She giggled, and so did the girls sitting next to her. “They could bite me anytime.”

James looked at the clock on the wall. “Time’s up,” he said. “See you next week.”

As the others filtered single file from the classroom, Levon turned to James. “No hard feelings, Doctor Wentworth?”

“Of course not, Levon.”

Levon smiled, a flash of white brilliance, and he extended his hand. James stepped behind the instructor’s desk, sliding his hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers.

“I’m sorry,” James said. “I have a cold and I don’t want you to get sick. You have a big game tomorrow night.”

Levon pointed out his folded arm instead. “All right, elbow bump.”

James laughed, and they touched elbows.

“Good luck tomorrow night,” James said.

“You coming to the game?”

“I’d love to but I can’t. Midterms coming up, you know. Maybe next time.”

“You need to get out more. I never see you out with the other professors, and I never see you around town. You never go to the games. Are you married?”

James was startled by the suddenness of the question, and he tried to set his expression. He didn’t want Levon to see how shocked he was, but the look on Levon’s face told him he had not been quick enough.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Levon said. “I was just wondering if you had anyone waiting for you at home.”

“Not anymore.” 

“Too bad. You’re a youngish guy, what, about fifty?”

James shook his head. “You young people think everyone older than you is fifty. I’m thirty, Levon.”

“All right, thirty, even better. From the way the girls giggle about you, you must be okay. They all have a crush on you.”

“They do not.”

“They do.” Levon threw his backpack over one shoulder. “You should find a friend before it’s too late, Doctor Wentworth, you know, a nice lady. That’s all I’m saying.”

James sat on the edge of a student desk, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the young man in front of him.

“You’re right,” James said, laughing, like the fact that he kept so much to himself was the biggest joke in the world. “Not about finding a nice lady. I did that once. I mean about getting to a game. I’ll come soon. I promise.”

Levon seemed satisfied with that answer. As Levon left the classroom, James saw Timothy loitering outside. By the time James stepped over to talk to him, Timothy had disappeared. James looked down the hallway and heard the boy’s quick-time steps crossing the pavement of College Drive. He knew he would have to talk to Timothy about that, again, soon. It didn’t help anything to have him disappearing like a slight-of-hand trick. James went back into the classroom, packed up his book bag, and left campus, not as quickly as Timothy, but fast enough. It had been a long night.

CHAPTER 4

Sarah couldn’t stop thinking about the house she saw when Jennifer drove her home.  It didn’t make sense that it should look familiar when it was located on a street she had never been down in a city where she was new, but she was certain it was the one she had seen in her dreams. Since the psychic reading two nights before she felt like she had restless leg syndrome, like she had to keep moving even when she didn’t want to. When she slowed down, even for a moment, odd, unclear thoughts occurred to her, and she didn’t want to try to make sense of them. She wanted to sweep them away, hide them in the closet, forget the reading altogether.

Walking always helped to vent her excess energy, so she decided to take a trip across town to look at the house again. It wasn’t very late, the sun just setting. The gray cloth-like clouds were not in formation yet, still filtering in over the bay. It didn’t look like it would rain for a few hours, so she thought she had enough time to make it there and back before the storm broke. She walked along the same tree-lined route Jennifer had driven, careful with her steps, watching for landmarks like the Hawthorne Hotel and the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. She didn’t want to get lost walking home when she was still learning her way. 

It was dark by the time she saw the old house waiting stoically along the road, more hidden behind oaks and shrubs than other homes in the neighborhood. Though the others were well lit outdoors, this one stayed dark. She wouldn’t have known it was there if she hadn’t already seen it. There were no lights on inside either, and it looked like no one was home, so she walked onto the lawn and pondered the old wooden structure, wondering what scenes it had seen and what stories it could tell. For such an old house it was well maintained. It looked like other historic buildings in the neighborhood dating from the seventeenth century, only this was no museum as the others were. This was someone’s home. 

She thought about the house she left behind in the Hollywood Hills, modern-looking, cookie-cutter, whitewashed stucco, one that looked light and airy on the outside but trembled inside with permanent distress from an unfortunate marriage. The morning before she left for Massachusetts she stood outside and memorized the place where she had lived for ten years, the way it peeked from a catty-corner on the curving road, the feathery bushes on either side, the waving palm trees behind, the border of blue and purple petunias lining the square front yard. As much as she loved the house itself the memories inside were too hard and it had been time to say good-bye. She moved to Salem with the certainty that she needed a fresh start, but now she was confronted with confusing thoughts about an odd psychic reading and a house she thought she knew.    

At first glance the seventeenth-century wooden structure seemed dark, heavy, weighted down by an uncertain past. But the longer she studied it the more she decided that it was warmth and nostalgia she felt rather than age and decline. She still didn’t see any movement or hear any sounds coming from inside, so she stepped closer to the front door, inspecting the diamond-paned windows, the wooden slats that made up the exterior walls, the ridge of the shingled roof, the two steep gables pointing upward to the moon in heaven. She walked around to the indented pendill and put her hand on the wood, listening, wondering if she could hear the house explain why it looked familiar to her. Then she stepped closer to the gnarled oak tree, touching the rasping bark, searching for some clue about why she would dream about this house. She watched the ghostly branches stretch toward the sky, each reaching for its own memory from the long history it had seen. 

 When the front door swung open it creaked and startled her. Though it was dark, Sarah saw a man standing skeleton-still in the shadows. He stared at her, his mouth open as if he were trying to speak though he stayed mute. She tried to make herself disappear behind the oak tree, not wishing to disturb anyone, afraid she had been trespassing. She decided she needed to say something to break the awkward silence. 

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to look at the house.”  

She began to shiver, not from the nip of the autumn air, but from the feeling that she recognized him. But how could she know someone she hadn’t seen before? What was she supposed to say to him—“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” It was such a bad pick-up line. She couldn’t explain why she thought the man or his house looked familiar, so she decided it would be best if she went home.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I can see I’ve disturbed you. I’ll leave.”

As she turned toward the road she felt his hand on her arm. She didn’t expect him to get to her so quickly from where he stood, and she didn’t understand why he had to grip her so tightly. Finally, she could see him in the slim strings of moonlight, his blond hair, his handsome face. He was intense, needing something, wanting something, but she was afraid to guess what that might be.

He touched his hand to her cheek. “Lizzie. My Lizzie,” he said. “You’ve come home to me.” When Sarah stepped back he moved toward her, closing the space between them. “It’s all right, Elizabeth. Everything is all right now. You’re home.”

“My name is Sarah.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He kept his hand to her cheek, his skin cool, she thought, like the water at night when she walked near the shore, not cold as much as unheated. He was so taken by staring at her that she thought he must recognize his mistake, but he stayed calm, like mistaking one person for another was something he did every night. As she stared at him she noticed his eyes. In the silver moonlight he looked too pale, but his eyes were darker than a tornado in the night ocean sky. He continued staring at her, intent, desperate, as if he were hoping to see something in her that could not be there. She wanted to run away and not look back, but something kept her there, watching him, curious about him. Drawn to him.

“Are you James Wentworth?” she asked, trying to spark some recognition in him. “Jennifer Mandel said she knows you from the college. We drove past your house and I thought it was interesting so I came back to look. Please, just let me go and I’ll leave.” 

There was a flash of light in his stormy night eyes. He let go of her arm and stepped away. “Oh my God,” he said. “Yes, I am James Wentworth. I am so sorry.” He dropped his face into his hands. “Oh my God,” he said again. When he lifted his head he seemed as if nothing strange had passed between them, like a completely different man—rational, composed, thoughtful.   

“I can see I’ve frightened you,” James said. “Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.” He walked closer to her, tentatively, as if he were afraid of scaring her again. He was inspecting her, searching her face, her hair, her hands. He leaned his face over her head, close to her hair, as if he smelled her. And then it started to rain.

“Will you come back?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

That seemed to be the safest answer. Sarah turned toward the road, and when she looked back he was already by his door, watching her. Some part of her wanted to go back to him, brush his hair from his eyes, ask if he was all right, he seemed so very spent and broken. Then she felt the pull of him, as if he reached inside her and found her innermost secrets, the best and the worst of her, and yet he was still there. There was something in him, some longing, and she scolded herself for wanting to stay and discover its meaning. She needed to be far away from him so she walked, faster and faster, trying not to slip and slide in the slick, wet street, away from the old house from her dreams.

CHAPTER 5

Sarah avoided thinking about the beautiful strange man by the beautiful old house for most of the rest of the weekend. Monday night she was busy in the high-tech room in the library preparing for a seminar about how to access resources from off campus. Jennifer found her while she was setting up the Elmo machine.

“Need help?” Jennifer asked.

“No thanks,” Sarah said. “I’ve got it.”

Jennifer stood silently, watching Sarah fiddle with the wires connecting the Elmo to the projector. With a point, she directed Sarah’s attention through the window that looked into the hallway. Sarah saw Denise, another librarian, straightening her short red dress and smoothing her hair as she walked past. Denise smiled when she saw she was being watched.

“She’s leaving for her date with Wendell,” Jennifer said. 

“That can’t be right. Wendell is a student aide.”

“Exactly.”

Sarah put her hand over her mouth to stop her laughter. “That isn’t funny.”

“I’m surprised none of the students have asked you out, Ms. Alexander.”

“Please.” Sarah used her hand as a stop sign like a police officer directing traffic. “No one is allowed to ask me out right now. Not for at least a year. I’ve decided. I can’t think about another relationship right now.”

“Even if you find someone great?”

Sarah flipped the switch on the Elmo and saw the logo of Salem State College, a blue sketch of the
Friendship
, on the white screen on the wall. “Not anyone,” Sarah said. “Not now.” 

The smile slipped from Jennifer’s face. “That’s too bad,” she said. She adjusted the lens on the projector so the logo was clearer. “So I heard you met James the other night. He teaches English here, did you know that? And he’s cute too.”  

“Cute and scary. Maybe not scary. Intense might be a better word.”

“Did he really frighten you?”

Sarah paused, watching the logo on the screen as she considered. “I wasn’t sure if I was more frightened for myself or concerned for him. He seemed more upset than intimidating. He certainly is handsome.” She paused because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to share her next thought. But Jennifer was already her best friend in Salem, so she decided to trust her.

“I think he looks like the man in my dreams. I’ve never seen the man’s face—it’s always in the shadows—but when James first came out of his house I couldn’t see his face either. I don’t know. Maybe I’m losing my mind. Something about being in Witch City, I guess.”

Jennifer watched Sarah with the same detective-like concentration her mother had. Then she turned her attention to the desks scattered haphazardly around the room, straightening them into five neat rows.

 Sarah stared at the floor, consumed by thoughts of the other night. Her encounter with James stirred too many emotions at once: fear, concern, sympathy, attraction, but mainly disappointment in herself for finding him alluring at all.