Off Course (25 page)

He was sorry. Sylvia had wanted to talk. She'd swapped shifts with another waitress and driven up to Noah Mountain. She stayed till midnight. He couldn't phone Cress with Sylvia there, and it was too late after she left. They'd had to hash out everything. He owed her that much. Sylvia said if more attention was what he needed, she would
love
to provide it. In fact, she told him, she would do anything, anything he wanted, if he would come back home.

“And you said…,” said Cress.

“The time for doing is past. What's done is done.”

Cress slid down the wall and sat on the gritty hall runner.

He needed to see her. What time was she getting off work?

They made a plan and, stupid from the one-two punch of terror and relief, Cress wandered into the kitchen for coffee. In the living room, Donna and Norma sat on the boxy old-fashioned maroon sofa. Cress lifted her cup in greeting. In her thick white bathrobe, her hair turbanned in a towel, Norma stood and steered herself out of the room. For days now, Cress realized, whenever she'd entered a room, Norma left it.

Donna patted the sculpted mohair. “Cress, come sit for a minute.”

Norma's heat lingered on the cushion, and the air there smelled of crème rinse. “Until the wedding,” Donna said, “this is Norma's home. You must see that it's hard for her to have you and Quinn carrying on in the next room.”

Carrying on?
“But we're completely quiet! Never a peep.”

“What you two are doing goes against everything Norma and Ike are moving toward.”

“It's got nothing to do with them!”

“And I don't like it, either,” Donna said quietly.

“I thought you liked Quinn. You knew that he and I…”

“I knew Quinn had gone back home to his family.”

“I didn't expect it to blow up like this. I never dreamed—”

“Please don't bring him here anymore,” Donna said. “And this—you being here—isn't working out, either. You can stay till June 14, which gives you time to find another place.”

A week! “You're kicking me out? Why? What'd I do?”

“For one, I'd like you to stop wearing those black sneakers.”

“Oh! But I thought you didn't…”

“I lent them to you for one hike. And you've been wearing them ever since. I'd also appreciate it if you stopped using my makeup and perfume. And I'd like you to replace that earring.”

Cress gaped at Donna. “What earring?” she said.

“The gold one that's a jointed fish.”

“I never borrowed any of your earrings,” Cress said.

“Well, it's missing, and since you help yourself to things that don't belong to you, it's logical to assume you had something to do with it.”

“A touch of lip gloss is hardly the same as stealing a gold earring.”

Donna set her cup down and frowned. “There's a carelessness about you, Cress, and a blurriness about what's yours and what's not. That earring disappeared since you've been here…”

Cress did not know what to say. She'd assumed it was okay to wear the sneakers again. Given Donna's vast inventory of
stuff
, who knew that she closely monitored drugstore lip gloss, musk oil, and secondhand shoes that didn't fit her and she never wore? And yet, to hear Donna list her crimes, Cress had to admit: it did sound like thievery. Thievery and thoughtlessness.

“Ask Don if you can borrow his room here in town.” Donna's tone softened. “He never uses it. But Norma deserves to feel comfortable in her own home.”

*   *   *

Rosellen, the day bartender at Beech Creek, was a humorless older woman with a gray beehive who'd been working there for more than twenty years. She motioned Cress up to the bar. “What's your whole name, Cress?”

“Cressida. Cressida Hartley.”

“I thought so. Listen. I don't want to scare you, but you should know. Some people in this town are not your friends.”

“Like who?”

“That little storefront church behind the market? My daughter goes to prayer circle there. She came home last night and said you were on the prayer list. They were trying to pray you out of town.”

*   *   *

Her mother phoned from the Meadows, and asked Cress to meet them for breakfast at the Sawyer Inn. The three of them took a booth in the log-lined dining room. What were her plans, they wanted to know. Was she done with the A-frame? Could they start renting it out? “We sure can use the revenue,” her father said. “After the bath we took from Rick Garsh.”

Go ahead, rent it, Cress told them. She could move her boxes over to the new house. At any rate, she'd be driving up in the next few days to get her summer clothes. She was thinking of going to Pasadena for a while.

Her parents exchanged glances and mutually decided not to press her. She guessed then that they'd made a vow not to mention the diss. Grateful, she wished she had something more to offer them—and she did, a wisp: “So you know, I've been seeing somebody. Uh—a man. We might be getting married.”

“Married?” her mother said. “May we ask this man's name?”

“I can't say yet. It might not happen.”

“Why can't you say?”

“Can't say.”

Her parents looked at each other. “Well, let us know when you can say,” her father said.

“It won't be for at least a year. Probably a little longer than that.”

“Does this fellow know he's marrying an heiress?” said her father.

“I'll be sure to tell him, Dad.”

“Sam,” her mother said, “will you do me a favor and get me a couple of aspirin out of the car? They're in the blue tote bag, behind the front seat.”

Her father, sixty-six years old, stood. “Anything else while I'm up?”

“Pay,” her mother said, and handed him the check on its little tray.

Her mother waited until he'd left the restaurant. “So let me guess,” she said. “He's married, right?”

Cress dipped her head.

“The finish carpenter.”

“How did you know?”

“A little bird. Is he getting a divorce?”

“Supposedly.” Cress's eyes filled with tears. “I don't really know,” she said. “I'm not sure he can go through with it. She's putting up a fight.”

“Oh, Cress.” Sylvia Hartley reached for her daughter's arm and searched out her eyes. “I can't believe this is happening. I vowed never to let anything like this happen to either of my daughters. It's the worst pain. I know.”

She knew because something similar had happened to her, with her drama teacher at Penn, a man eighteen years her senior, who was married, with five children, a three-story house in Melrose Park, and tenure. They'd fallen in love her junior year during a production of
Two Gentlemen of Verona
—she'd played Julia—and that love hadn't gone away or lessened over time. She'd had no choice but to stay on after graduating. He rented her a tiny furnished room downtown, where all she did was wait—for his visits, his phone calls, his divorce. At some point, his wife called her parents, who showed up, moved her out of the apartment, and shipped her across country to Aunt Shula in Hollywood.

Is that what happened?
According to family myth, Cress's mother moved to Hollywood to further her acting career. “Did you ever see him again?”

“After your grandfather spoke to him, he wouldn't even answer my letters. It almost killed me. I suffered till I met your father, and even then … Your Quinn might have more courage. Does his wife know about you?”

“We tried to keep me out of it, but she spied on us. And now they're having these long talks.”

“Some of the worst marriages have very deep roots,” her mother said gently. “For your sake, Cress, I hope he doesn't pull it off. You don't want stepkids. And you'll never be shed of her, between the children and alimony.”

“I don't care about all that,” said Cress.

“I do,” her mother said dryly. “I want so much more for you. But here. Before your father comes back.”

Sylvia Hartley rummaged in her blue leatherette handbag, pulled out a checkbook, and scribbled intently. “Go away,” she said, pushing the folded paper across the table. “Go see your sister. Take yourself out of the equation. It's your only chance. Let them sort it out. If he's serious, he'll come after you. If he doesn't, you're well rid of him.”

Her father walked up, shaking a large bottle of aspirin. “Is the coast clear?”

“For God's sake, Sam,” her mother said. “I only wanted a couple.”

They left the restaurant together. Her parents climbed into the Jeep and drove off. Cress unfolded the check. Five hundred dollars.

*   *   *

“If you leave me,” Quinn said, “I would still divorce her.”

“I'm not leaving you,” she said, now for the fourth or fifth time. She was just going out of town till the dust settled. How could Sylvia believe that Cress wasn't a factor if Quinn was with her all the time?

Besides, Donna had evicted her. And those prayers nipped at her heels, she could feel them. All signs pointed out of town. She'd only be in Pasadena, a hundred and sixty miles away. They'd talk every night. He could visit anytime. Once the coast was clear, she'd come back. He need only say the word.

She didn't mention London; London was her contingency plan.

“I don't know if I can bear your not being here,” he said.

“We could always move to the A-frame,” said Cress. “Nobody's rented it yet.”

His face brightened, then he shook his head. That would only inflame the situation. No sense rushing into anything, when reason and gentleness might prevail. So. Hmm. Maybe her leaving town for a bit was a good idea.

*   *   *

“Tell Quinn to settle things with his wife in the next few days,” Dalia said. “June is crazy busy, and if you leave now, I just don't know how I'll manage.”

 

Nineteen

At six thousand feet, two inches of new undisturbed snow from a freak late storm blanketed the road. The Saab's tires held, and once Cress turned into the Meadows, the road was plowed. Smoke billowed from the lodge's stone chimney. Tire tracks corrugated the parking lot. She recognized Rick Garsh's work truck and Kevin's Toyota.

The A-frame was dark, the water and heat had been turned off. The fireplace held a match-ready fire, but she didn't feel entitled to light it. The macramé, the grocer's scale with its dusty pinecones had been restored to their former places. She had been gone for two months.

Seeing the wicker love seat and hard bed delivered shocks of pain. An ache lodged high in her chest, as if she'd swallowed a sharp pit. She pulled out her boxes and found the vintage rayon housedresses she'd worn all last summer in Pasadena and a pair of vintage red pedal pushers from the fifties with a side zipper. Here was the gingham shirt she wore last August; Jakey once tossed it through the air with hilarious abandon.

She called Tillie—to hell with the expense. “I'll be down Sunday afternoon,” she said.

“Oh good—we're having a dinner for some guys Edgar works with and their wives. You can help me cook.”

She hung up and clenched in pain.

*   *   *

Jakey was behind the bar, inventorying the liquor. “Saw you drive in,” he said. “I was hoping you'd stop. How's my favorite economist?”

“Not so hot, Jakey.” She pulled herself onto a barstool. “Love trouble.”

“Your carpenter? I heard he left his wife.”

“Of course you did. But I don't know if he can pull it off.”

Jakey poured a generous bourbon-rocks and pushed it her way. “You're a great girl, Hartley. You deserve to be happy. I'm not sure this one's the one. What's the matter with Don Dare, or that Freddy—now there's someone who's going places. You know he got into Yale Law and Boalt?”

Really! “Good for him,” she said. “But those guys don't do it for me.”

“You don't give 'em a chance. Forget us old dogs,” said Jakey. “We're secondhand goods, worn out and tattered. You need someone young, with juice.”

“This one has juice, Jakey. He wants a divorce, but she doesn't.”

“She wouldn't be single long, I guaran-damn-tee it,” said Jakey. “Men go for that small dainty kind of gal.”

“Hey! Why not help me out here,” Cress said, not entirely joking. “Work your magic on her.”

Jakey's eyes were bloodshot. He gazed out the window with his mouth open. A strange orange light flashed through the room, then again and again as the old Oshkosh plow growled into view. “You overestimate my powers,” he said. “Someone like her would never give it over to a schmo like me.”

“Sure she would. A friendly chat-up, a couple cozy nudges…”

“What if it worked? I'd have her on my hands. Then what would I do?”

“You didn't worry about that with me.”

“Of course I did. But I knew you'd be okay. You're smart and tough.”

“You're sweet, Jakey.”

He came around the bar and sat beside her. “C'mon, Hartley.” He crushed into her arm. “You're young. A lot of fun. A good damn lay. Don't waste your time on us has-beens. You should be out there cooking up economic theory, making a name for yourself. I'm telling you, a hundred guys'd love to scoop you up, give you all the babies you want, buy you a big old mansion in town and a place up here for the weekends. Give 'em a chance. Shit, man. Your leg's caught in a trap here, you gotta chew it off. Dump that hangdog nail-banger, Hartley. He's not hot enough or smart enough for you. Remember who you are. I hate seeing you like this. Take back your own damn life.”

Jakey's words cleansed and energized her as she wound down through the snow zone. She'd move back to Los Angeles, get a decent job in a museum or some research firm, finish the damn dissertation, marry some smart, lively guy. Someone with money—what a good idea!—or at least excellent prospects.