Meeting Miss Mystic (8 page)

“I love you, Sand. Congratulations on the baby. I’m really, really happy for you and Rob.” She dropped her aunt’s hand gently, then turned and headed up the stairs, wishing she could escape her life. Wishing the light moments she spent as Holly were enough to balance the dark hours of regret she spent as Zoë.

***

When Holly didn’t pick up the second time, Paul put his phone down, furrowing his brows. It was the right number. It was the same number he’d used to text her earlier today. He opened a text box.

Hey Holly. Tried calling, but you’re not picking up. Maybe you changed your mind?

He debated whether or not to send the message, and then he quickly pressed send and put his phone down on the cushion next to him. Cleo looked up at him with her big brown eyes.

He wondered what had happened. Why wasn’t she picking up? He picked up his phone and scrolled back through their messages.
I’ll be waiting.
That was her last message. It wasn’t an ambiguous answer. What had happened? She didn’t like highway driving. Could she have gotten into an accident? Could something have happened to her?

His hands began to sweat. How would he even know? Maybe he’d just never hear from her again.

That possibility was like a punch in the gut. Sure he’d only known her for a week, and no, he’d never met her in person, but damn it, he liked her. He really liked her, and he didn’t want for their fledgling relationship to be over. What he wanted—

Cleo yelped and Paul realized that his phone was buzzing and vibrating beside her. He grabbed it like a spaz, almost dropping it from his slippery hands as he pressed answer and held it up to his ear. “Hello?”

“Paul?”

“Holly?”

“It’s me.”

It’s me.
He loved it that she said that. He smiled, relaxing into the swing cushion as he got used to the sound of her voice.

“I thought maybe you’d decided against talking.”

“No,” she said, and he closed his eyes, listening to her voice. It was soft and gentle, like a summer breeze on your cheek, a brush, a caress. “Not at all. I bumped into my aunt on the way home and she had some good news to share. She’s having a baby.”

“A baby! Wow! Congratulations, Holly. That’s great. A cousin for you.”

Holly chuckled lightly. “Yeah, I guess. That hadn’t occurred to me yet. A cousin twenty-four years younger than me. Huh. Weird, right?”

“Not at all. Lucky little thing to have an older, wiser cousin.”

“Ha! Older, yes…Wiser…?” He smiled as her voice trailed off. He liked it that she could laugh at herself. “Anyway, sorry if I worried you.”

“You did. I admit it,” he said.
Think fast, Paul. Don’t bring up highway driving.
“I was worried some guy saw you sitting alone at Starbucks and thought you might be available.”

Damn! Damn, damn, damn.
Why did he
say
that? It sounded too possessive! They were just getting to know each other. He bit his bottom lip, grimacing, waiting for her response.

She chuckled that soft, breathy little laugh again. “I guess I just wasn’t putting out the ‘I’m available’ vibe.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask
Any reason for that?
but he stopped himself. She was nice enough to let him off the hook, no need to push her.

“Phew!” he said. “Keep that up, Holly.”

“We’ll see…” she demurred, lightly. “So, Principal Paul, when do you go back to school?”

“I have another two weeks of summer break. Then a week of admin work before the kids come back. Although I should check in tomorrow, make sure the custodial staff has started their first day of school cleanup. Takes a month or so.”

“Hallways buffed to a high shine?”

“Hey, Miss Morgan! Are you a teacher or something?”

“Flannigan.”

“What?”

She paused for a second and he wondered if she was drinking something hot because he could have sworn he heard her hiss and curse softly like she would if she burned her mouth.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just—Flannigan is my name. H-Holly Flannigan. I used Morgan over the internet. You know, for anonymity. It was my mother’s maiden name.”

“Ohhhh.” It had never occurred to Paul—not for one moment—that Holly was anything but what she’d represented herself to be, her name included. Flannigan was a perfectly nice name, but for a moment Paul felt gypped out of something. Who was Holly Flannigan? He was falling for Holly Morgan, not Holly Flannigan.

Then he shrugged, shaking his head. Stupid. She had every right to conceal her identity from internet creeps; not to mention, it didn’t matter what her last name was. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Holly was still Holly.

“Miss Flannigan.”

“The very one.”

“It is really, really nice to meet you.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls you pick up online.”

This time, he was the one who chuckled softly, pulling Cleo on his lap and settling back into the swing, Holly’s playful sweetness overtaking him as their conversation hit a steady rhythm.

***

Zoë got up and padded to the kitchen, the phone still attached to her aching, tender ear after two solid hours of talking to Paul. The clock on her microwave read 12:05 a.m. She opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine, pouring herself a small glass.

“It’s after midnight here,” she said. “I’m having a glass of wine.”

“You pour yourself a glass. I’ve drunk a whole pitcher of tea in the past two hours, so I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” she said smiling. She felt her cheeks flush as her thoughts swiftly moved…there. He was going to the bathroom. He was going to open his pants and pull out his—

Zoë swallowed a big gulp of wine, wishing she could divert her thoughts. Instead her mind insisted on its present course, subtly changing the dynamics of the fantasy to include her sitting on the edge of his bed as he unbuttoned, then unzipped his pants, pulling them down and off his bare feet until he was just wearing boxers in front of her. She’d lean forward and hook her thumbs into the waistband of the shorts, pulling them down slowly so she could—

“Holly?”

“Huh? Yes! I—I mean, yeah, um, I’m here.”

“You okay?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Tired?”

Turned on.

“A little,” she sighed, placing her half-finished wine glass on the coffee table and lying back on her couch, switching ears. “I lit candles in my living room an hour ago so the light’s soft and warm in here…and I don’t have air conditioning, but I opened the windows and there’s a breeze tonight. The air’s still misty from the rain earlier and it makes the smell of the sea even stronger. You know that brackish, tangy, salt water smell?”

“Mmm,” he murmured. “I know it well.”

“It’s heavy tonight. Thick,” she whispered.

“Holly.” He said her name softly.

“Mmm?”

“I like you a lot.”

“I like you too,” she whispered, without missing a beat.

“When can you talk again?”

She groaned inside. She knew it was time to hang up. They’d been talking for hours and he thought she was tired. But she wished they didn’t have to say good-bye.

“Later in the week?” she asked, cringing, hating herself for making him wait, but not wanting to seem desperate.

He didn’t say anything but she could hear him breathing and she was pretty sure he didn’t like her answer. She almost retracted her words—telling him to call her tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow night, whenever he wanted to! —when he responded.

“Tuesday?”

She smiled. “I promise I’ll pick up next time.”

“Tuesday at 10 your time?”

“It’s a date,” she said softly. “Night, Principal Paul.”

“Sleep tight, Holly Flannigan.”

She drew the phone away from her ear and pressed the red end button quickly, before she was tempted to try to revive their conversation again. She sighed, staring at the dancing light of the candles on her ceiling.

It shouldn’t be possible to feel like this after a week.

It shouldn’t be possible to feel like this about someone you’ve never met in person.

It shouldn’t be possible to feel like this about someone two thousand miles away.

All of these concerns were quietly irrelevant as she let her eyes flutter closed, curling up onto her side, deeply certain of one thing:

It
was
possible, because Zoë was falling for Paul.

Chapter 5

Over the ensuing weeks the summer weather changed appreciably. The early-September mornings were a good deal chillier, which Paul welcomed, looking forward to the excitement of fall and the school year ahead. Unbelievably, next Tuesday was the first day of school.

Generally this time of year was galvanizing for Paul as he reviewed class lists and curriculums, communicated with his teachers about new policies passed down from the Gardiner Board of Education, and took a special interest in finding community volunteers to help with the rich roster of extracurricular activities that had helped to make Gardiner High the most highly rated high school in the state.

This year was different. While Paul still reviewed the policies, class lists and curriculum, his head wasn’t as “in the game” as it had been in years past; it was thousands of miles away in the salty-smelling air of late-summer Mystic which captured his attention at all hours of the day.

Without realizing it, Paul had re-structured his life around the moments he “spent” with Holly. He would wake up in the morning, shower, shave, get dressed, make himself a cup of coffee and take his laptop out to the porch swing where they’d had their first phone conversation. He kept a fleece jacket by the back door and threw it on every morning lately, settling into the swing, with Cleo, and starting his days writing a “Good Morning” message to Holly.

They had settled into a routine of sorts: there was a message waiting for him every morning as Holly started her day writing him a little something: a short message about what she’d be up to that day or what she was looking forward to tomorrow. She told him about the book she was reading and somehow convinced him to read it too. They talked about how they both went to college in Rhode Island, and she’d tell him about Mystic while he gave her a good education on Yellowstone.

Sometimes, he noticed, though not often, her spirits dipped. She’d write less than usual and complain about the heat of the Connecticut dog days of late summer, or make a general philosophical reference to life not turning out like she expected. He liked her all the more for these glimpses into her personality. He liked getting to know the woman behind the beautiful girl. He wanted to know everything about her and he marveled at how open and real she was in their communications.

And, he thought smiling, she always ended on a positive note, making him laugh with a well-written observation or gently poking fun at herself.

Paul would sip his coffee, picturing Mystic as best as he could remember it from the one or two times he’d visited: the cobblestoned streets of the seaside village with an ancient harbor and tall ships. He’d picture her taking walks around the harbor in her white sundress, mentally wishing away the men who’d stop and smile at
his
Holly. Then he’d write back to her, sharing his plans to take a hike in Yellowstone or head up to the Target in Bozeman for start-of-year supplies.

And though he knew that much of their fledgling relationship was based on a certain amount of fantasy, he couldn’t deny or explain the growing longing for her, to have her closer, to touch her face and hold her hand and watch the sun turn her blonde hair gold. He’d known Holly for exactly a month, exchanged almost a hundred e-mails and texts back and forth and talked on the phone a handful times; how she managed to brush her fingers tenderly across his heart again and again, from ten states away, was a mystery to Paul. But being away from her was starting to distract him, frustrate him, the first excitement of finding her tempering itself now against the yearning he felt to have her physically close.

Juxtaposed against his feelings were hers, as he perceived them. The time or two that he’d mentioned a visit before Christmas, Holly had changed the subject or put him off with reminders about how busy the beginning of the school year was for principals and teachers. She was right, of course. There was no way Paul could pick up and leave Gardiner now. But his mind turned often to the Columbus Day break. A weekend plus Monday and Tuesday, the four days would be enough time to make it to Connecticut and back. While he generally used that weekend to prepare for Homecoming activities, surely he could leave those preparations to his excellent faculty, along with a group of student and parent volunteers.

The very question had come up in conversation at the Prairie Dawn last night. He’d been sitting at the bar with Maggie when a tourist took the seat beside him. The thing about living in Gardiner? You knew everyone who lived there, so a new face stuck out like a sore thumb.

Turned out she was from New York, her name was Jane and she was working on the photo shoot for
Trend
magazine that Lars was handling. After talking about the supermodel, Samara Amaya—who also happened to be Jane’s cousin—for a few minutes, the conversation shifted back to what Maggie and Paul had been discussing prior to Jane’s arrival: Miss Mystic and whether or not Paul should go for a visit.

After Maggie and Paul shared the whole story with an interested Jane, she turned to Paul with a smile. “You must have liked her a lot out of the gate, to get to know her from so far away, once you realized the distance.”

He thought of the picture of Holly, so fresh and lovely at her cousin’s wedding. “You could say that.”

“
I
could say that?” asked Jane in her deep, Eastern-accented voice. “Look at you. You’re a goner.”

“I like her,” he confessed softly. “I look forward to her e-mails and texts. I love talking to her on the phone. We talk about our lives, work, whatever, you know? I tell her everything lately. She’s a teacher and I’m a principal so we talk about our students, our families, what we like to do on the weekends. Yeah, I like her.”