Buddy fought the urge to pull her into his arms. Instead, he said, “Alcoholism is a disease, honey.”
Oops, that had just slipped out. They’d never openly discussed her problem, and now she was going to tell him it was none of his damn business and storm off toward her home. And who the hell was he to “honey” her? He gritted his teeth for the impending explosion.
Surprisingly, it didn’t come.
“True, it is.” She passed right over the term of endearment. “But that doesn’t make it any easier to live with.” She picked up a muffin and peeled back the cupcake wrapper, toying with the foil in her hands. It seemed she couldn’t keep her fingers still for a minute.
Is it possible that Miss Ava is nervous? Buddy wondered. Because of me?
“No, I really don’t think he did. I think he liked to look, not touch. Well,” she corrected herself, “I’m sure he would have liked to touch, but he knew that if he ever reached out that hand, he’d pull back a bloody stump.”
Buddy laughed aloud at that one, so hard he had to lean over, grabbing the rail for support. Ava had never been accused of being too soft on a man.
“I think it was all about him needing to know he was attractive, that he could still do that Jimmy thing, and that he could still draw women to him like a magnet. So I told myself that, and sometimes the flirting and the leering didn’t matter.” She looked at Buddy sideways, not sure why, but knowing she was going to confide in him now. “But other times . . . I didn’t like it. There were other times, in fact, when it goddamn hurt so much it was hard to take a deep breath.” She stopped then and did indeed take a deep breath. “It made me think, you know?” she asked softly. “Sometimes I’d wonder what they had that I didn’t. Were they smarter, prettier, sexier, more ladylike, less of a handful? More . . . worth his time? After all,” she sighed with just a trace of bitterness, “it was pretty clear he could have any woman he wanted. So, what did they have?”
There was no one more worth it, he almost blurted, but caught himself.
“I’m sure there was no one else,” he said instead.
“Did he want more of a typical doting, adoring wife instead of a buddy who worked constantly alongside him, trading dirty jokes as fast as he could? Was I too little for him?”
“I can’t imagine you being too little for anybody,” Buddy said wryly.
“Well, then, was I too much? That feeling that deep down he might want someone else more than me, that he was stuck with me. That ugly kind of feeling is how it felt.”
Buddy reached out to touch her knee this time; it was his turn to be the comforter, the consoler. And after all those broken affairs she’d nursed him through long ago, it felt damn nice.
“He should have had his eyes on you at every minute, Ava,” he said tightly. “He just plain should’ve gotten over his insecurities and learned some damn manners. If you’d have been my wife, I would never, ever have looked anywhere else.”
“I don’t suppose you would have,” she agreed. “After all, you did a pretty good job of looking only at me when I was someone else’s wife, let alone yours.”
And, bam! There she was, right back in the driver’s seat of the conversation.
“Remind me to talk to your daughter,” he sighed, “about knowing what is and isn’t her business, and knowing when to shut the hell up.”
“Oh, Suzanne didn’t tell me that part,” Ava told him, standing up, fluffing her hair, looking down on him with a bemused smile. “She didn’t have to.”
“She didn’t?” Buddy found that hard to believe. “So, what did you do, call up one of those dial-a-psychics and . . .”
“You men,” she sighed. “You all think you’re so much more clever than you actually are. And, for the most part, stealth is something you’re allergic to.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Buddy,” she told him, “in case you’ve forgotten in your old age: for almost two decades, we worked in a restaurant that had mirrors on half the walls.”
“Well, I . . .”
She giggled at his stunned expression. “Oh, Buddy McKinley, please! Don’t bother denying it. I have eyes,” she said gleefully. “And that creepy little tingling sensation on the back of my neck. You know, when all the hairs stand up? Of course I knew. Women almost always know.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, relieved. “For a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me that Jimmy was the one who told you, that he’d figured it out. It’s a relief to know . . .”
“Oh, Jimmy knew too,” she filled him in. “He wasn’t stupid either. And he also had eyes.”
Buddy covered his eyes in abject shame as her tinkly laugh washed over him once more. She certainly had a case of the giggles this morning, and it was nice to hear, even if it was at his expense.
“Hell,” she went on, “some of the regulars had bets on whether I’d finally toss Jimmy over for all his looking and drooling and run off with you to Ireland once and for all.”
“The regulars knew?” Buddy cried, dismayed. All those years of thinking he was playing everything so darn close to the vest. Turns out he might as well have had I Heart Ava shirts printed up. “They talked about it? They knew?”
Ava nodded, and he sat down again, dropping his head into his hands.
“I am a terrible man,” he said mournfully. “I am a terrible, terrible best friend. I shouldn’t be allowed to mingle with actual people. I should be put in a cage and studied to see if evil truly does live longer.”
“Rest assured,” she told him, “it does.”
He finally pulled his head from his hands long enough to look up at her.
“What did he say? What names did he call me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if he knew, then he must have been . . .”
She laid her hand on his shoulder, stopping him; for another moment, their eyes met, and the sensation was both familiar and exhilarating.
“He felt guilty for a long time,” Ava said gently. “After all, I was your girl first.”
“Damn right,” Buddy retorted, before he could stop himself, but he needn’t have worried; Ava threw back her head, roaring with laughter.
“And every now and then, I think it got his goat a little to know that his best friend would always have—I don’t know how you want to say it—a soft spot for me. And whenever that happened,” she smiled again, her eyes dancing, “I’d usually get something pretty from Market Square Jewelers.”
Buddy’s woeful groan echoed throughout the courtyard, and could be heard, they later discovered, by two neighbors and a paperboy.
“My God, you must have just hated to see me coming; you must have been so uncomfortable every time I walked in the door. No wonder you hated me so much.” He shook his head, still agonizing.
“Are you kidding?” She nudged his shoulder lightly. “Quite the opposite. First of all, you were our best friend, and we loved being around you, no matter what. And as for the other thing, the guilt of turning you down and then hooking up with your best friend finally went away—and that took a number of years, let me tell you.” It was her turn to wince a little. “After that was over . . . Hell, you made me feel like a million bucks. And you made Jimmy realize every day that he was the luckiest man in the world—even if it didn’t stop him from flirting with other women. It kept things fresh.”
Buddy didn’t know quite how to respond to that one. “You’re . . . welcome?”
She clicked her tongue at him. “Goodness, Buddy, I’m not thanking you!” She admonished. “Maybe I should be, but, well, I gave you homemade muffins. That trumps a thank you.” She waited a few minutes for him to pick up on the hint, and when he didn’t, she exclaimed, “Why, yes, thank you, now that you mention it, a mug for my coffee would be perfection!”
“Sorry, sorry, it’s early, and I haven’t put on my manners yet.” He reached for his cane, got to his feet, and went into the kitchen, coming back with a couple of mugs. He’d got
ten used to the cane over the years, but Ava had never seen him with it; oddly, he didn’t feel self-conscious about it—maybe because she hadn’t seemed to notice it. When he poured the coffee from her thermos, he said, “I see you already put the cream and sugar in it, like I like it.”
“Jimmy took it strong and black—ugh!” Ava made a face. “You and I, though, just enough coffee for coloring, and then the rest sugar and cream. Molly calls it a coffee-shake.”
“The guy with the coffee and bagel cart,” Buddy suddenly remembered. “You know, the one with the Golden Retriever named Fritz, in Market Square, what was his name again?”
“You remember the dog, but not the man?” Ava had to think on that one a moment herself. “Don, it was Don, or . . . no, wait!” She snapped her fingers. “Denny, that’s it. Denny.”
“The guy that dropped out of law school and sunk everything he owned into a coffee and bagel cart.” It all came flooding back in a rush. “Still, without us, I’m telling you, he’d have gone under that first year.”
“I don’t know if we can take all the credit. He had the loveliest, lightest buttery muffins . . . I could eat three in one sitting if I wasn’t careful.” She rubbed her stomach happily. “In fact, I could have eaten myself into a fat, blubbery heart attack, but what a way to go!”
“I can only think of one better,” he said, and then immediately bit his lip. Okay, that was definitely too far. Now she’s going to think you’re a pig, and you deserve it, he scolded himself.
It had been a nice conversation, for a while there.
But instead of getting upset, her laughter rang out, much to his relief.
“Oh, yes, I’d have to agree with you on that one.” She dropped him a sly wink.
He’d forgotten that her sense of humor was comparable to a truck driver’s. He ran his hand over his head, suddenly very aware that he was standing there in his robe and with what must be a good case of bed-head. He groaned inwardly, wondering why he never seemed properly groomed for the really important moments of life. In his senior yearbook, the picture was of a very young Buddy with a very distinct and noticeable case of conjunctivitis—or, as they called it, pink eye. He’d showed up at that dance at the Rochester Recreation Center in a rumpled shirt and dungarees. For his first job interview, he’d conducted himself professionally, intelligently, all without realizing that his fly was open. Later, he’d somehow managed to spill coffee on the perfect silk shirt he’d bought specifically for the opening of O’Shaughnessey’s, and wound up smiling for the press wearing one of the extra staff polo shirts that was lying around—it had been two sizes too small, which emphasized his growing gut in black and white for all of the Seacoast to see. Bad luck, his mother had said, seemed to follow him around when it came to appropriate dress, and Buddy feared she was right.
Ava didn’t seem to notice, however, and never had. Maybe for women it was enough for them to be gussied up in all that makeup and the perfect shoes and hairdo; maybe they didn’t really care what anyone else looked like.
“So,” she batted her eyes, trying to flirt her way out of twenty years of bad behavior. “You forgive me, then?”
“Forgive you? For what, exactly?” His eyes twinkled; it would be out of character for him to make this easy on her, and she’d expect nothing else.
“Well, I . . . I just . . .” she struggled. “I’m trying, here, to find the most elegant, feminine way to put the phrase, ‘I’ve been such an asshole.’ You see, it was just so . . . It was a difficult time, things were . . . they were . . .”
“Spit it out, for gosh sakes,” he advised her. “You’re going to sprain something.”
She eyed him frostily. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were enjoying this.”
He looked at her innocently, but there was nothing he could do to smother the sparkle in his eyes.
“I shouldn’t have blamed you, back then. And then, for all those years after, I shouldn’t have held such a grudge,” she said at last. “I think I knew all this time that it was James.” She looked down at her hands, now completely bare of rings. “After all, he’d never have let you behind the bar. You couldn’t mix a Tom Collins worth a damn, that’s why he never made you get your TEAM license.”
“Hey!” He put a hand on his heart, pretending to be wounded, but she looked at him firmly; no kidding around here.
“You just let me finish, or else I might not get this all out.”
He gestured, showing her she still had the floor and that he was, indeed, listening with both ears and all his heart.
“When we lost the pub,” she began, “it was as though the bottom just dropped out of our lives. Not only was that pub our means of making a living, it was twenty years of our creative sweat, blood, and tears. It was our family effort, our little family business. It was . . .” she sighed, thinking of the long, green stairway that lead up to the pub, the mahogany bar, the heavy wooden stools, the music, the crowds. “It was our very own little piece of the world.”
“I remember that feeling, too,” he told her.
“I know you do,” she covered his hand gently with her own. “So, when it was gone, I was hurt, I was confused, and I was furious.”
“You? Angry? I don’t believe it!”
“You promised you’d let me just get it out!” she said indignantly, and for the second time, he was properly chastened, bowing his head; he’d gotten so used to batting away Ava’s comments with a joke. Old habits were tough to break. “Anyway, I was so angry, and you know me, I can’t hold onto my anger, it’s got to go somewhere or I’ll just . . .”
“Explode into little tiny bits?” he offered.
She nodded, surprised and delighted to be understood so well, even if she couldn’t find ways to express it herself.
“Yes, that’s it. That’s it, exactly.” She clapped her hands together. “So, there’s all this anger, just looking for somewhere to land.” She looked up at him shyly. “And there you were, insisting to everyone who would listen that it was all your fault . . . So, it was easy to do the math.”
“So,” he replied, lacing his hands behind his head and rocking back and forth in his chair. “You’ve known. Deep down, all this time you’ve known, and you just didn’t have the guts to get in touch with me and tell me.”
She squirmed in her chair. This was every bit as uncomfortable as she’d feared it would be. As she moved, he noticed how the sun hit the highlights in her auburn hair. They looked like glowing embers. “Okay, fine, you’ve got me.” She smiled coyly. “But it’s only because I’m so soft and vulnerable.”
“Oh, you.” It was his turn to laugh then. “You’re trying to make me break a rib, and then you’ll be good and rid of me.”
“There was a time I would have,” she agreed. Growing somber again, she added, “But I did miss you. I missed you terribly. Most of all, after James died . . . oh, my.” She stopped to clear the catch in her throat. “They tell you you’ll get over it in time, but that’s just another lie, like, ‘Once you see the baby, you forget how much the labor hurt.’ I love my daughter more than my own life, but bringing her into this world hurt so damn much it kept me from ever having another. And insofar as forgetting the hurt of when your mate passes on . . .” She shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t get easier. Oh, you get used to it, but it still hurts every bit as much as it did the day they buried him.”
“I just bet it does.”
Their eyes met then, in the cool morning air.
“Oh, Buddy.” She looked down at her hands again, ashamed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, geez.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “What are you sorry for this time? What have you gone and done now?” But he couldn’t tease her out of this one.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you come to the funeral,” she whispered. Her eyes glistened with tears. Not having a napkin, he handed her the end of his bathrobe tie, which she took gratefully. Dabbing at her eyes, she added, “I’m so sorry for that—it was petty and mean,
and I really regret it. I do.”
He reached over and lifted her chin up so he could look at her lovely face. “My turn to confess.” He winked. “I was there.”
She sat up straight, astonished. “What? How?”
“Oh, it wasn’t so hard.” He smiled. “You were so distraught that you weren’t looking around—just straight forward. I spotted you and Suzie with your red heads, right up at the front of the church, you were easy to keep track of. So, I just jumped in right as the service began, and bowed my head when you and Suzie and Molly went by on the way out. I didn’t know that Molly belonged to Suzanne; she looked barely more than a kid herself.”
“She was barely more than a kid when she had Molly,” Ava told him. “I yelled and screamed at that girl like you wouldn’t believe, called her every name you could imagine. Jimmy just sat there in his chair; I think he was in so much shock, he lost his voice for a day or so.” She leaned forward, gesturing him to come closer. “I even told her not to have the baby, which to this day terrifies me.” She clapped her hand over her mouth and shuddered, so horrifying was that thought now. “For years, I kept having these terrible dreams that it’s 1994 and we’re in that terrible argument, only this time she takes my advice; then, in the dream, we’re swept right back here in the present, and we’re having a lovely lunch, or Christmas, or walk in the park. Suddenly Molly is sucked away from us, up into the sky, so fast we can’t grab her.” She shivered, not even wanting to think about it.
“She’s something special, all right,” Buddy remarked, looking fondly toward Ava’s house, where Molly lay sleeping. “No arguments there.”
Ava sat for a moment, letting the relief sink in as she let the weight of the guilt she’d felt since the funeral go.
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