Owen glanced over his beefy shoulder at the other patrons of the John B. He knew most of them by now. Fishermen, men who worked the odd farms on the island, storekeepers. It had taken him a long time to become familiar with these grizzled, clannish islanders. When he had first come to the island and begun frequenting the John B., he often bellied up to the bar alone, drank alone, and left without exchanging more than a nod. It had not bothered him particularly. It suited his solitary temperament. Nowadays, though, he could expect to have a few conversations and occasionally a hand of poker on an evening like this, which was all right too.
“Hey, Owen.”
Owen swiveled around to see Charley Cullum slide onto the bar stool next to him. “Charley,” said Owen, raising his glass an inch off the bar in greeting. “How ya doin’?”
“Give me a Bud, Roy. Fine.”
“I’m surprised to see you out.”
“I get out,” Charley protested. “Not as much as you bachelors, of course.” Then he leaned over and spoke confidentially to the big man. “Grace has her Garden Club tonight. So I left the kids with my mother.”
Owen nodded sagely. “I saw Grace today,” he said.
Charley, a balding man with an open, bland face, took a sip from the beer Roy Galeata placed in front of him. “You were over at the paper?”
“Jess needed a story on Ben McGuffey. He’s retiring, you know. He’ll be ninety next week.”
“Is that right? Ninety. God bless him.” Both men drank a silent tribute to the resilient sailmaker.
“Did you meet the new girl while you were over there?” Charley asked.
“Yeah,” Owen replied. “As a matter of fact, she did the story with me.”
“Whew,” said Charley, shaking his head. “Grace sure doesn’t like her. She’s been crabbing about her ever since she showed up. She’s just hoping and praying that Emmett will fire her when he gets back.”
Owen shrugged. “She seems all right.”
“I don’t know her myself,” Charley protested. “She’s pretty enough, though. I got a look at her the other day. She was over to the drugstore while I was there.”
Owen finished his beer and motioned to Roy for a refill. “Jess seems to like her,” he observed.
“I know it,” said Charley gleefully, nudging him in the side. “I think that’s what’s got Grace so riled up.”
Owen smiled thinly. The peculiarities of the female
temperament were not his specialty. He had never wanted to be a married man. Thinking about Maggie, though, he was struck again by the nagging feeling that he had met her before. Somewhere. He just wished he could remember where it had been.
“Hey, look at that,” Charley cried, pointing at the television at the end of the bar. “There’s a Bob Hope special on tonight. That’s great. I love that guy. He played for my outfit when I was in Korea. Oh, man, I’m gonna stick around for that.”
Owen nodded politely. “I photographed him once,” he admitted, knowing the reaction this piece of information would elicit.
“No kidding,” Charley cried. “Didja really? When was that?”
“Oh, that was some years ago. When I worked for UPI in New York. They sent me off to some fund-raiser he was doing in Poughkeepsie. There were a lot of stars there, but he was the biggest.”
“Oh, yeah? What was he like?” Charley asked eagerly.
Knowing what his drinking companion wanted to hear, Owen obliged. “He seemed like a very nice man. A real gentleman.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Charley, satisfied. “I guess you’ve taken pictures of a lot of important people.”
“Important people, not so important people, more than I’d care to remember,” Owen observed. “More than I’m able to remember.” Then, for an instant, his thoughts flashed back to Maggie. A little pinpoint of recognition flashed in his brain, like a shooting star.
Then it was gone again. Had he photographed her somewhere? The sensation left him with the vaguely troubling idea that it was important to remember.
“Hey, Owen,” said Charley. “You want to play some cards before the show?”
Owen frowned into his beer glass.
“What about it?” Charley nudged him.
The bearded man looked up. After a pause he said, “Sure.” He lifted his glass off the bar and followed Charley over to a nearby table to join the game.
“Well, I think we got everything you need, Willy,” said Jess, examining the contents of the paper bag by the light of the open car door. “Collar, leash, dog food, bowl. You’re all set.”
“Good thing the dry-goods store was open late,” Maggie said, cradling the puppy in her arms on the front seat. She slid out her side and closed the door behind her. She walked around the car and started toward the porch steps where Jess had preceded her.
“Hey,” he said, placing the paper bag on the porch and turning to face her. “Let’s not go in yet. Now that it’s cleared up, the sky is really beautiful. You want to take a walk?”
Maggie looked up. The stars were brilliant in the blue-black heavens, as if the rain had polished and wiped the skies clean. “It is beautiful,” she said.
“Come on,” said Jess, taking her elbow. “We can take Willy down by the stream back there. After all, he has to get to know his new home.”
“It’s so dark,” Maggie protested.
Jess smiled. “I’ll protect you,” he said. “I won’t let the bears get you.”
“Are there bears?” she asked, backing away from him.
Jess laughed. “Oh, brother,” he said. “Take my hand.”
Obediently, Maggie grasped his hand and, holding the puppy in her other arm, followed his lead through the long grass of the field behind the house. In the moonlight, the field looked enchanted, waving soft and silver. They passed by the tangled branches of the crab-apple trees and found themselves on the bank of the stream. Jess sat down on a large, flat stone and motioned for Maggie to sit beside him. They could hear the water gurgling not far from their feet. Maggie placed the puppy gently on the bank beside her, and the dog began to stumble around, sniffing hesitantly at the rocks and shrubs on the bank.
“If I remember it right,” said Jess, “there’s an old root cellar down that way. Maybe Willy likes apples.” He slipped his arms around Maggie’s waist.
She kept her eyes trained on Willy’s explorations.
“He likes it here. See?” Jess asked.
“Yes, he seems to,” she said.
“Do you?”
Maggie nodded but kept her eyes on the puppy. “I like it. But I have this funny feeling we’re not alone out here.” She glanced over her shoulder into the darkness.
Jess laughed. “It’s just the bears,” he said.
“There are no bears,” she informed him primly. She picked up a nearby twig and began poking it absently into the ground around her feet.
“That’s true,” he said, running his hand gently down her bent back. “It’s just us.”
The touch of his hand on her back sent a thrill through her body that made her shiver.
“Are you cold?” he asked softly. “I can fix that.” He pulled her back and encircled her in his arms. He spoke into her hair as he held her. “Is that better?”
She felt swollen with desire for him and at the same time plagued by a sense of uneasiness. “It’s better,” she said, “but…”
Jess lowered his head against her cheek. “But what?” he asked, reaching for her fingers and kneading them gently in his.
Maggie wondered if he could feel the pulse throbbing in her neck. “I told you,” she said weakly. “Last night.”
“Last night,” he repeated, then fell silent. He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. She watched his thoughtful face. She knew she was trembling, but she could not control it.
“After you left,” he said, “I didn’t know what to think. At first my pride was hurt, I guess. I thought maybe I should just do as you said. Stay away. But the more I thought about it the more I was sure that wasn’t the answer. I could feel that you wanted me. I knew it. It’s just that you seem to have some reservations about me…”
“Not about you,” Maggie interrupted him, squeezing his hand.
“About what, then?” Jess asked as she pulled away from him.
Maggie sighed and sat silently for a moment, unable to answer. Jess waited. Finally, she said, “About… myself. Jess, you don’t know anything about me.”
“Tell me,” he said.
“No,” she said, standing up and walking away from him. The puppy yelped happily as she came closer to it. “It’s better just to leave it this way. Believe me.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he protested.
“Believe me,” she pleaded with him.
Jess got to his feet slowly and walked over to where she stood, looking down at Willy. “The man you loved before,” he said. “You told me he died.”
“That’s right,” she whispered.
“Maybe you’re afraid to try again,” he said. “I don’t know. But what happened before has nothing to do with us.”
Maggie looked at him sadly, wishing she could tell him the truth. Knowing that she couldn’t.
“I want to ask you one question,” he said. “And I want an honest answer.”
“I’ll try,” she said, knowing she might have to lie.
“Do you want me?” he asked. “Do you want to make love with me?”
His question caught her off guard. She did not reply, but her eyes answered truthfully.
Jess put his arms around her and drew her to him. “All right, then,” he whispered. “Then what I think is that you have to trust me. You have to believe that I won’t hurt you, or leave you. That nothing bad will happen.” He began to kiss her on the neck.
The kiss pierced her. She was stirred and feverish in his arms.
“Let me love you, Maggie,” he said, his lips moving to her mouth. “Let me.”
She did not want to resist him. She wanted to believe him. It had been so long. His hands were moving over her body.
“You’re so soft.” She found his lips again. Still holding her with one arm, he bent down and picked up the puppy. Then they started back toward the house, stumbling through the grass, clutching each other.
When they reached the back door he opened it and put the puppy inside. Then he turned to her. “I want to make love to you,” he said. “Come inside.”
She kissed him in passionate agreement. A warning rang inside of her, futilely, like a phone beneath a pillow.
It will be all right,
she told herself as the fears tried to surface.
It’s all different this time. It will be all right.
Desperately, she embraced him.
Hidden by the darkness, flattened against a tree, Evy watched them go into the house.
In a while, she saw a dim light illuminating the bedroom at the back of the house. She waited a few moments and then moved closer. Through the curtains she could see him kneeling over her, taking off his clothes, his naked back and buttocks to the window. She watched him bend over her, covering her with his body. Then Evy turned away.
Her pale eyes stared into the night, dull and expressionless. There was no mistaking what she had seen. No question now of what must be done.
She stood motionless. A few dead leaves scraped by
her as they fell. The only movement in her passive face was a slight motion of her jaw. She ground her teeth together, as if she would turn them to powder. Inside her clenched fists, her ragged fingernails gouged purple welts into her palms.
With a last, lingering kiss, Maggie pulled away from Jess and leaned back against the pillows of her bed. She turned her head and stared out the bedroom door toward the living room, where Willy made the noises of a puppy dreaming. Jess drew himself up on one elbow and watched her pensive face. Finally, he touched her shoulder lightly. She turned around to face him.
“Anything wrong?”
“No,” she said, smiling at him. “Everything’s fine. I was just thinking.”
“Thinking what?” he asked.
“Stupid things,” she demurred. “You’d laugh.”
“Bet I won’t.”
She regarded his face solemnly. There was tenderness in his eyes, as well as a hint of pride. He had pleased her, and he knew it. He was satisfied with himself, and with her, and with the world. His expression did not offend her. In fact, she wished she could just live for a while in that simple, perfect feeling. But it seemed as elusive as a fragrance, slipping away at the very moment that she breathed it in.
“I was just thinking,” she sighed, “that for a minute, there, I felt so secure. You and I, here together, Willy sleeping out in the living room. I felt… safe.”
“You are,” Jess exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”
“You see,” she said ruefully. “You think it’s strange.”
“No,” he said. But even as he shook his head, she knew he didn’t understand. He didn’t, but he accepted it. “I told you I was good for you,” he said.
She arched herself up and held him fiercely for a moment. Then she sank back on the pillow, and he kissed her lightly.
“Hey, I’m hungry,” he said. “Have you got anything to eat in this house?”
She gestured vaguely toward the kitchen. “There’s some cheese. Some bread. I don’t know.”
“Cookies?” he asked eagerly.
She laughed, and he kissed her again. “Hold that smile,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Her eyes caressed him as she watched him go. But once he had left the room, she felt a chill come over her. She lay alone in the bed, remembering her last night with Roger. If they had not gone to that motel, it would never have happened. If they had not been driving along that lonely highway, on that snowy night, the killer would have found another victim. She remembered the days after Roger’s murder in a kind of blur. Numbed by her loss, alone and friendless, she had accepted her arrest, almost embraced it, as her punishment. The one person she had really loved was dead. The only one who had ever believed in her since her father. Maggie flopped over on her stomach and held the pillow tightly to her. It was so dangerous, she thought. Loving someone. It frightened her. “Jess,” she cried softly.
The bed dipped to one side. “What’s the matter?” he asked, lying down beside her. “What is it, Maggie?”
She turned over and faced him tearfully. She swallowed hard before she spoke. “Did you eat?” she asked.
He smiled, relieved by the ordinary query. “I brought you an apple,” he said.
She smiled wryly. “Keeps the doctor away.”
“Keeps all those guys away. I want you all to myself.” He embraced her gently. She curled up in his arms.