Stranger in Camelot

by Deborah Smith

  “Agnes, there are a thousand subjects I want to discuss with you,” he said slowly, still looking straight ahead so he wouldn’t break down and kiss her again. “Everything from your favorite flavor of ice cream to your lifelong ambitions and deepest fears. Everything you want, or love, or hate. But right now there’s one thing I have to ask.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like it,” she warned softly. She ran a hand through her hair wearily, tearing at a snarl in the red strands. “But go ahead.”

  He twisted a little so he could watch her expression. “Only a man you cared enough about to marry could turn you into such a loner. What did your husband do to you?”

  A shuttered look came over her face, and her eyes filled with doubt as they searched his. John cupped the side of her face and made a soothing sound low in his throat. “I’m not going to judge you by anyone else’s faults. If I were that kind of bastard, I’d have turned away from you when Mrs. Roberts made her stupid little remarks about you. But I’m not a narrow-minded fool.”

  Tears rose in her eyes. “I guess you wouldn’t settle for learning my favorite flavor of ice cream? It’s vanilla. Vanilla’s simple, classic, and it doesn’t surprise you. No matter how it’s made, vanilla’s always about the same.”

  “Agnes,” he said sternly.

  She sighed and faced the ocean again. “It’s true about him being a drug dealer. Big-time. Upper-management level,” she added bitterly. “Never got his hands or his respectable image dirty.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Not long before he was arrested. We’d been married for about three years.”

  “He didn’t use drugs himself?”

  “At parties, sometimes.” She hesitated, a muscle popping in her jaw, then added, “So did I.”

  “Were you addicted?”

  “No, nothing that awful. I wanted to fit in. It wasn’t cool to say no. And to be honest, I was so depressed about who I was that I wanted something to make me feel better.”

  He put a hand on the back of her neck and massaged the sinew that made a thick ridge there. “Who were you, then?”

  “An ex-child star nobody recognized anymore. A bargain-basement actress who wasn’t trained to be anything else. I’d worked in the business since I was a baby, for godsakes. When I couldn’t get jobs anymore, I felt lost and worthless. I tried going to college, but I couldn’t hack the routine.”

  “You’re a smart, disciplined person. I can’t believe you dropped out of college simply because it was difficult.”

  “But see, I didn’t know how to adjust to classrooms and strict schedules and all those things. I never went to high school!”

  “You can’t mean you never got an education.”

  “No, I have a high school diploma. But I never had a high school. Tutors were hired to teach me while I worked. On breaks during the day. That was the only time I had for school. By comparison, college was too slow for me. Boring.”

  “I can’t picture you failing at college because of laziness.”

  “Okay, okay, there were a lot of reasons. But I could have tried harder.”

  “What held you back?”

  “I spent too much time running after Richard, doing whatever he wanted. He didn’t like me being preoccupied with college. He never saw the point in getting more education when you already have money. He complained so much about my schedule, I quit.”

  “Richard, eh? I’m glad to know his name. Now he isn’t an anonymous face in my mind. I can picture him.”

  “Oh? What do you think he looks like?”

  “He has fangs, pasty skin, and he turns into a bat each night.”

  She gave a short laugh. “If nothing else, you described his personality.”

  “Tell me more about this vampire.”

  “He owned a real-estate company. Sold expensive houses to expensive people. He was about ten years older than I and very sophisticated. He wore designer suits, spent money like there was no tomorrow, and made me feel important even though I wasn’t a TV star anymore.”

  “I suspect you needed him for the wrong reasons, reasons you didn’t understand until you were older.”

  “No, I can’t blame my mistakes on being too young. I was twenty-two when I married him, but the way I grew up, that wasn’t young. I spent my whole childhood working as a professional actor. I was expected to be a pint-sized adult. I grew up too fast.”

  “Precisely. You never had a normal life. You were inexperienced, in that sense.”

  “ ‘Inexperienced’ sounds better than ‘confused and stupid,’ which was what I was.”

  “Sssh. If Richard made it impossible for you to go to college, what did he expect you to be?”

  “A lot of fun,” she answered grimly. “His own private party girl.” She roughly brushed sand off her toes. “I was good at it, too.”

  “What happened after he was arrested?”

  “The government seized everything he owned, which meant everything I owned, since it was all in Richard’s name. He went to prison. He’s still there.”

  “And you were left with nothing?”

  “Yep. One week I was living in a Malibu beach house and shopping in Beverly Hills, the next I was selling my wedding ring to buy groceries and rent a cheap apartment.”

  “That was when you moved here to live with your grandfather?”

  She laughed ruefully. “No, I wasn’t gonna go down without a fight. I stayed in California for about another year. I wanted to prove the tabloid stories were wrong. I wasn’t just another washed-up kiddie star who’d made some stupid mistakes.”

  She swiped a finger across her mouth as if there were a bad taste there. “Then I made some more mistakes. Nothing I want to talk about.”

  She didn’t have to. John knew what she meant. He’d seen a tape of the TV movie she’d made. Agnes had portrayed a young cocktail waitress who seduced and then blackmailed all the ministers in a small Midwestern town. The plot was no more than an excuse for scene after scene of smirking sexual innuendo.

  The movie had been badly written and poorly made. And Agnes, as she’d already admitted to him, was a mediocre actress. Her primary purpose in the film had been to wander around in a breathtaking variety of lingerie.

  When he’d watched the tape, John had laughed at her acting ability and made bawdy, admiring comments about her body. Now he felt a deep stab of sympathy for her and an urge to strangle the filmmakers who’d humiliated her in that piece of trash.

  John turned his hand palm up along her neck and began drawing his fingers through her thick hair, carefully untangling the curls and smoothing them. “Let’s keep talking about Richard. Do you still love him a little?”

  “I never loved Richard,” she retorted so quickly that she almost spat the words. “I had love confused with need. I needed emotional security. I thought having a husband would give me that. Now I know I’m my own security, and the only thing I need a husband for is … nothing. I don’t need a husband at all, come to think of it.”

  John frowned at her. “Don’t let Richard turn you off about love and marriage forever. There’s nothing more wonderful than a loving partnership between a man and a woman.” The moment he finished saying those words, he was astonished. He almost believed them. This was carrying things a little too far.

  She grasped one of his shoulders and looked him in the eye with steely dismay. “You’re a doll, and when you leave I’ll miss you. I’m already sure of that. But you come from some kind of fairy-tale world. You wouldn’t recognize real life from a hole in the ground.”

  “I haven’t lived in the clouds, Agnes. I know what the real world’s like.”

  “Right. A place where rich little boys go to private schools and rich young men go to Oxford, before they inherit the family business and become rich young men who have so much money they can take a month off to hang out in America.”

  John told himself to ignore the anger rising in his chest. If she knew the harsh truth about
his background she wouldn’t be so smug. “I don’t get the feeling you grew up poor or downtrodden, Agnes. You certainly didn’t marry a poor man, from what you’ve told me.”

  She went very still, looking stunned and then furious. “I made my parents rich,” she said slowly, between gritted teeth. “But we lived one step ahead of the creditors. That Ferrari I told you about? It was repossessed, just like every car we ever owned. My parents never held on to a dollar long enough to make the paper warm.”

  “Richard must have looked like a security blanket. No wonder you thought you loved him.”

  Her face turned white. She got to her knees. “Are you askin’ me if I married him for his money?”

  “Did you?”

  His candid question apparently shocked her. “Maybe I did!” she blurted out. “Maybe I loved his money as much as I loved him. Don’t look at me that way. Don’t you dare.”

  “You’re seeing what your defensiveness expects to see, not what I feel. Don’t overreact.”

  “You’re judging me!”

  “You’re judging yourself. Calm down.”

  “I don’t need your do-goodin’ attitude, okay? I don’t want your pity either.”

  John ground his teeth. His sympathy was fading. She was taking advantage of the courtesy she claimed to adore, knocking him for not being cynical enough. He had plenty of cynicism, if she wanted to know the truth. In a tight, controlled voice he said, “Agnes, I think you’d like to be a bully.”

  “No, I just have a fine-tuned ear for hypocrisy. Guess it comes from being misjudged too often by strangers.”

  “You’re accusing an innocent man.”

  “No wonder you love all that medieval hogwash about chivalry. You’re a real Sir Galahad, I admit it, but maybe that’s because you can afford to be. Get real.”

  John seethed inside. He’d busted his bum trying to make her happy with some bloody silly fantasy about him, restrained himself from taking advantage of her loneliness, listened to her sorrows with a kind ear, and all it had gotten him were accusations. He’d been wrongly accused too damned much in the past year.

  John grabbed one of her hands, kissed it roughly, then set it back in her lap. “You’re a snob, Agnes. I feel sorry for you.”

  “Sorry for me?” she repeated, her voice rising. “I never asked for your sympathy!”

  “You need a great deal more than my sympathy. You need for me to shake up your lopsided notions about how men and women are supposed to act. For one thing, when a man treats you nicely, you shouldn’t yell at him like a shrew.”

  “This isn’t a medieval fairy-tale! This is real life! When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, don’t expect me to play Lady Agnes for you!”

  “Would you trust me more if I’d taken advantage of your hungry little body a few minutes ago? I could have, and you know it. But I didn’t. Make up your mind—am I a hero or a fool for treating you with respect?”

  “You’re not either! You’re just a different type of man, one I haven’t figured out yet!”

  “This conversation is pointless. Let’s change clothes and go to one of the restaurants along the beach. We’ll have an early lunch. You could use a soothing cup of clam chowder. Heavy on the clams.”

  “I think I’d better drop you off at the campground. Then you can do what you want, and I’ll go to my interview.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not going to back out on your invitation. I’m going with you to see that model-train craftsman.”

  “He’s not a craftsman, he’s a weird little old man nicknamed Squid, who builds miniature tanker cars out of salt shakers and trees out of broccoli covered in shellac! My world isn’t classy, John! You don’t know much about me or my life, but you think you have all the answers. You don’t!”

  He stood and held out a hand. He’d had enough. “Get up, Agnes, and stop caterwauling. I’m sorry the subject of your ex-husband upsets you. But don’t transfer your anger to me.”

  “Caterwauling?” she echoed, crouching on all fours. “You self-satisfied horse’s ass.”

  “You need a bit of cooling off, my lady.” He snagged her under both arms, pulled her to her feet, then in the same motion threw her over one shoulder. He pivoted and carried her toward the surf.

  She had too much pride to squeal in public. So she hung there, her short-nailed fingers digging into his lower back, while she hissed in a whisper, “Stop! Set me down!” Several children playing nearby screamed with laughter and called to their parents to watch.

  “Agnes, I’m going to tell you something, and I want you never to forget it.” John plowed into the surf until the water reached his waist. He dumped her sideways into the swirling waves. When she clambered to her feet, slinging her hair back and balling her fists, he pointed a finger at her calmly. “I’m not Richard.”

  She halted, her lips parting in a silent O of shock. Then the fight drained out of her, and her fists sank into the water, unfurling. “I know that.”

  “You know it, but you don’t believe it. You’ll go on treating me as a threat until you accept the fact that not all men are like him. Accept me for what I am, and don’t hate me unless I give you reason to.”

  “I don’t hate you. Why do you think I was kissing you a minute ago?”

  “Oh, but kissing is such an easy thing to do.”

  “It’s the best I can do right now!”

  “That’s fine, but I want an apology for those terrible things you said to me.”

  “I only meant you shouldn’t give me advice on love and marriage. You’ve never been married! You’ve never really been in love!”

  “But I know what I want.” He held out his hands. What he said next was a shock to them both. “I want to marry you, Agnes.”

  She froze, staring at him as if he were crazy. Then a look of understanding dawned on her face, and she burst into laughter. “You sure know how to change the mood,” she said between chortles, swaying as if the sheer absurdity of his proposal made her weak. “That’s the best thing you could have said. All right, truce! You and me get married—agggh!” She shook her head and bent over, laughing harder.

  John stared at her in dismay. He didn’t know why he’d proposed. He’d had a feeling all along that things were going to explode in some unpredictable way between him and Agnes, some way neither of them could imagine yet. This was proof of it. But he knew one thing right now, as he examined his bruised emotions.

  She thought he was kidding.

  To his amazement, he wasn’t.

  Six

  On a Saturday night in the height of the spring tourist season the Conquistador Pub was so crowded with tourists it threatened to fall off its weathered gray pilings into the bay. The Jimmy Buffet imitator working the tiny corner stage had his amplifier turned up louder than usual, and a delivery boy handed Aggie a flowering cactus. She halted in the middle of her busy chores and lost all her concentration.

  Prickly, the accompanying note said. But lovely when it blooms.

  Aggie shoved the cactus into a back corner of the bar, crumpled the notecard and poked it into the red-clay pot, then stood staring blankly at the plant, a grin on her face.

  “Whozit from?” growled the bar’s owner, a middle-aged man with crew-cut gray hair, a Navy insignia tattooed on one beefy bicep, and a big, sweet heart under his attitude. Retired Chief Petty Officer Oscar Rattinelli, “Rat” to those willing to risk a broken face, peered over her shoulder as he waited for a blender to finish churning up a Pink Rum Punch.

  “Guy named John Bartholomew.” Aggie flipped a beer glass under the tap on the wall next to John’s gift cactus. “Been staying at my campground for the past week.”

  “Decent?”

  “Too decent.”

  “Why?”

  “Asked me to marry him.” Oscar nearly dropped the blender. “He what?”

  “He asked me to marry him. One week ago, he asked me.”

  “What’d you say?”

  She handed the frosty mug of beer to a c
ustomer at the packed bar, smoothly pivoting around three hundred pounds of stunned Oscar. “I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in years.”

  “What’d he say then?”

  “Said he wished a seam would pop in my swimsuit.”

  “How d’ya know he was just kidding about the marriage stuff?”

  “He’s got class. He was only trying to make a point.”

  “Whatzat?”

  “That he’s got class.”

  “Oh. I’m confused.”

  “He respects me. That’s what.”

  “Oh. He better. Papa Rattinelli would break all his fingers, if you say the word.”

  “Nah. But thanks.” She patted Oscar’s enormous shoulder with her free hand while she poured a shooter of whiskey for another customer.

  “I have to take care of you. You’re the best bartender I’ve ever had. And the prettiest. And the only one who didn’t quit the first time I yelled at her.”

  “I yell back.”

  “That’s why you’re special. If I had a daughter, I’d want her to yell just like you.”

  “You’re sweeter than key-lime pie for worrying about me. But don’t. John is a cross between Prince Charles and a Boy Scout. He helps little old ducks cross the road.”

  “Whatzis? He’s helping out around your lake?”

  “Yeah. And the old folks love him as much as the old ducks do. He rebuilt the carburetor on the Cranshaws’ Winnebago.”

  “They’re back again for another whole season?”

  “Yeah. Just like the past four years. I gave them the same deal they had with Grandpa—free use of a site and utilities in return for supervising the whole campground. They collect fees, keep the place cleaned up, and call me if any of the other guests get rowdy.”

  “And they like this Bartholomew guy too, huh?”

  She nodded vaguely and muttered to herself, “Funny, I wouldn’t have thought he’d know how to fix a carburetor. Especially after the model train thing.”

  “Model train thing?”

  “I did an interview with Squid Davis at the toy shop. John went with me. Oscar, if you owned a chain of hobby shops that sold, among other things, model trains, wouldn’t you know better than to lay your car keys on Squid’s electrified track?”