by Gayle Roper
“Yeah, but …”
“Yeah, but what?” Abby asked.
“Well, the guy’s dating me. What movie or TV star is ever going to do that?”
“Any man with half a brain would love to date you. You’re a wonderful person, and you’re cute as can be. You’re even a natural blonde.”
Celia made a small self-deprecating noise. “And I have two little girls who come as part of the package. What guy wants that?”
“So you don’t think you’ll see him again?”
Celia giggled as her sensitive fingers worked the tight muscles around Abby’s lower back. “He asked himself over for dinner tonight.”
“And you are going to feed him what?”
“Maybe I told him not to come,” Celia said.
Abby hooted. She couldn’t help it.
Celia sighed. “I tell you, Abby. All this interest from a guy like Rick scares me to death.”
“Celia! Why do you say that?”
“The last man interested in me was Eddie.”
“So?”
“I jump from a loser like Eddie to a winner like Rick just like that?”
“So you told him not to come tonight?” Abby couldn’t believe it.
Celia’s smile sounded in her voice. “I may be scared, but I’m not an idiot. He’s coming tonight, and Karlee asked him if he wanted to go to MacDonald’s with us tomorrow night.”
“And he said?”
“Yes.” She sounded amazed. “He said it would be fun. And,” her voice grew soft, “he asked me to dinner, just me and no girls, on Saturday.”
“Wow!”
“My thought exactly.” Celia moved up to Abby’s shoulders and began to work on them, following the muscles down the edge of her shoulder blades, probing, working, and applying pressure. Abby shut her eyes and relaxed when she wasn’t wincing. She let her mind shut down, but she fought sleep. When you slept, you didn’t feel all the wonderful untying of knots.
When Abby left Seaside Spa, not only did she move a bit more easily, she’d also avoided thinking about the letters for an hour. A major if temporary lessening of tension.
“Friday,” Celia said as Abby walked out the door. “You need to keep those muscles supple.”
“I’ll be here.” She climbed into her car and started home. At least Mom knew she was going to be late tonight, so she couldn’t complain. Still the idea of a tense evening after the lovely looseness of the massage was distressing.
Abby reached for her purse after she parked in her spot in the drive. As she did, her eyes fell on the folder that contained her copies of the two letters about her that had come to the library. The fear she had managed to contain at the spa rushed back, chilling her to her marrow. She picked up the folder and opened it. On top lay the letter that had arrived today.
When Nan had come to her, she hadn’t felt any prickle of forewarning, any anticipation of danger. Hadn’t Nan complimented her on the handling of Monty just a little over an hour prior?
“This is George Martindale,” Nan had said indicating the young Jimmy Stewart look-alike. “He’s the editor of the Seaside Journal.”
Abby smiled and felt like she should look over Mr. Martindale’s shoulder for Harvey, the invisible rabbit, so strong was his resemblance to Stewart.
“Do you have a minute?” Nan asked abruptly. “Come to my office.”
Abby went cold all over. Not again! She followed Nan and Mr. Martindale. In Nan’s office she took the same seat she’d taken yesterday. Mr. Martindale sat in another red faux leather chair a few feet from her.
“Mr. Martindale is chairman of the library board,” Nan explained.
Abby nodded and looked at Mr. Martindale, who studied her as if he were trying to read her mind.
“I received a very distressing letter in the mail today,” he said.
Abby felt the blood drain from her face. Without any more discussion, Nan handed her the letter.
Mr. Martindale:
As chairman of the library board you need to know that you have an unfit person working as children’s librarian. When we were at your library, she touched my child inappropriately. I cannot tell you how appalled I am. I do not want any other child to suffer as mine has. She is unstable. If she is fired, I will not press charges.
Abby had stared at the letter in disbelief, then at Nan. “No,” she whispered. “Never!”
“Why would someone send a letter like this if it wasn’t true?” Mr. Martindale asked. He didn’t sound at all like Jimmy Stewart used to, all warm and understanding. His voice was cold and brusque.
“I don’t know.” Abby blinked against the tears rising. She felt helpless. How did one prove one’s innocence of a charge like that? “I don’t know.”
They all sat in silence while Abby stared at the letter. She sat up straight. “There’s no signature.”
“That’s the reason we aren’t asking for your resignation,” Mr. Martindale said. “We cannot prove anything.” Even without the words being spoken, he couldn’t have been any clearer about wishing he could fire her outright.
“Please check with my former employers,” she begged. “I taught elementary school for several years before our daughter was born. They can tell you I’d never do something like this letter implies.”
“Thank you for the suggestion, Abby.” Nan kept her face neutral, wiped of any emotion that Abby might take comfort from or grow upset over. “We’ll talk to you later.”
Now sitting in the car in her drive, Abby let fall the tears that she refused to cry earlier. She cried until her head ached, her nose was stopped up, and her reflection in the rearview mirror showed red puffy eyes. Clutching her purse and the folder to her chest like they could offer her protection, she climbed from the car. She leaned on the fender, looked at the steps to her apartment, and winced, not at the stairs themselves but at the thought of facing her mother, who waited above. Mom would take one look at her eyes, all red and swollen, and rush to her, arms open wide.
“Oh, Abby, baby! What happened?” she’d say. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Not yet. Just come lie down. Let me get you a cold compress and a cool drink.” She’d shake her head. “I knew this job was a bad idea. I knew you were still too fragile.”
She’d tuck a summer blanket around Abby and smile softly as she did so, openly cheerful that she’d been proven right. She’d pat Abby’s cheek, a gesture Abby hated. It made her feel like a pet dog. “A couple of Tylenol and some chamomile iced tea. Then a long nap. We’ll just wait on dinner. Sleep, sweetheart, sleep.” She’d pat Abby’s cheek again and kiss her forehead.
Abby shuddered at the all-too-probable scenario. She saw herself looking just like Snow White, lying comatose on her bed, only with short, curly hair, a red nose, and swollen eyes instead of Snow’s fairy-tale peaceful beauty. She pictured Thumper and all the forest animals standing around looking sad. No. Wait. That was the wrong movie. It was seven little guys who should stand around and look sad.
She took a long steadying breath and longed for Marsh to appear. He could be her Prince Charming, and he didn’t even need to give her a kiss to revive her. He just needed to listen. Granted, he wasn’t always the smoothest operator, but more times than not he’d gotten her through a tough situation.
His parking place was empty. So was Rick’s. Well, the latter was to be expected. He was eating at Celia’s, which was fine. It wasn’t Rick she wanted. It was Marsh. She knew it should concern her how much she wanted him, but it didn’t. She could be concerned about the depth of her feelings when the crisis was over. Right now comfort was her most overriding need, and he was the one who could give it. If he had any wisdom, she’d take that too.
She turned sad eyes to the first-floor deck. Where was her hero when a woman truly needed him? With a sigh she walked slow step by slow step up the driveway, knowing there was no escape. Mom waited.
But Mom wasn’t the evil queen foisting a poisoned apple on her. Her agenda wasn’t to kill or
maim Abby, though that might well be the outcome anyway, at least emotionally. She was just an overprotective, highly opinionated mother who didn’t realize that parenting of such intensity should have ceased years ago. Life hurt at times, and Mom didn’t understand that Abby needed to deal with her personal hurts her own way in her own personal space and at her own pace.
“Mrs. Patterson! Mrs. Patterson!” Jordan rushed up to her, Walker hard on his heels. “Where’s Karlee and Jess?”
She looked down into Jordan’s upturned face. So open and trusting. So normal, even if he was more than slightly hyperkinetic. “They aren’t coming tonight. I’m sorry.”
“Rats!” This from Walker.
“What are you two doing?” demanded a cutting voice. “Get over here.”
Abby looked over at the irritated Vivienne, making believe she didn’t hear the low groan from Jordan. “Hello.” She made herself smile in a neighborly fashion.
Lovely as usual, Vivienne wore a sundress in shades of blue ranging from aqua to teal, looking like the ocean in the Caribbean, not New Jersey. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon that matched the mid shades of her dress. Teal sandals finished off her outfit. If the woman ever smiled, she’d be one of the most gorgeous women Abby’d ever seen.
“The boys don’t bother me, Vivienne. They’re good guys. I don’t mind them coming over.”
“Well, I do.” As she talked, she moved down the drive so she could look onto Marsh’s porch. Checking for the men?
The street door to the deMarco house opened, and Rocco stepped out. He looked as bad as Vivienne looked good. He wore several days’ worth of beard, his T-shirt was wrinkled, his jeans shredded at the knee, his white-stockinged feet dirty, but it was his eyes that stopped Abby. Hers might be red and swollen, but Rocco’s were full of pain.
The boys scampered toward him, and he walked forward to meet them.
“Hello,” Abby said again. “How’s your car?” She gestured to the navy Lexus.
“It goes into the shop tomorrow. It’s going to cost big bucks to fix it, but at least I don’t have to pay. The insurance has okayed the repairs.”
“Good,” Abby started to say when Vivienne’s voice cut in.
“Like you couldn’t afford it.” She looked at him in challenge. “You can afford anything you want—almost.” And with a toss of her head, she stalked off, leaving no doubt about what he couldn’t afford.
As she watched Vivienne disappear around the house, Abby remembered one of the boys telling her that their father was now rich. She glanced at Rocco and felt a stab of pity at the longing in his eyes as they followed his wife until she was out of sight. She noticed that the boys each held one of his hands. They, too, watched their mother’s retreating figure.
The very intensity of the sorrow of the three deMarco males made Abby think that the unhappiness they were facing was a relatively new thing, that there must have been a happy time for them. What had happened? Had Rocco been unfaithful?
“What’s your business, Mr. deMarco?” Abby asked, instinctively trying to find a topic that wasn’t hurtful for him.
He looked blank for a minute while he forced his attention from Vivienne and tried to process her question. “I’m not working right now,” he finally said.
“Oh.” It wasn’t the answer she expected. If ever she’d seen a man who needed his mind occupied with work, it was Rocco deMarco. Anything had to be better than mooning over Vivienne like he was.
“He was in dot-coms,” Jordan volunteered. His little chest swelled with pride. “He made a killing.”
Abby couldn’t help grinning. Did the boy even understand what he was saying?
Walker nodded, anxious to support his father too. “He sold out just before the bottom fell out of that market and made millions.” He took a step closer to his father.
Rocco grinned halfheartedly. “My fan club.”
Abby noted that he didn’t refute their claims. “You’re fortunate to have such loving sons.”
He looked over to where Vivienne had disappeared from view. “I am.” Still holding his sons’ hands, Rocco walked slowly back to his house, rich, loved at least by his sons, and miserable.
Abby sighed, starting toward the steps again. She put one foot on the first tread, stopped, and stared out across the beach to the horizon. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe she was still too fragile. Here she was, a grown woman whose mother felt it absolutely fine to move in without an invitation. And I let it happen without a single word! And I can’t even make myself tell her to go home.
Mom was like a plastic bag wrapped about her, cutting off her oxygen, smothering her independence, stifling the real Abby or who she hoped was the real Abby. The sad part was that she herself was the one who allowed the suffocating bag to remain in place. She should be clawing her way free, tearing the constricting encumbrance to shreds, proclaiming her freedom. Granted she’d tried to break free when she moved to Seaside, but her great adventure into independence had stalled after exactly one day and remained at a standstill ever since.
Oh, Lord, what do I do? About Mom? About the note? About the amnesia? And where’s Marsh?
She glanced up the stairs, swerved left, and walked onto Marsh’s porch.
Thirty
THE LETTERS SHOULD have arrived by now. The very thought of it made him grin. He wished he had been a fly on the wall so he could have seen that librarian’s face when she read that first letter.
What were the exact words again? Oh, yes. Are you aware that the woman who is your children’s librarian has spent several years under psychiatric care? Nothing like the term psychiatric care to get people nervous, especially if the people who needed psychiatric help worked around children. Pretty clever choice of words, if he did say so.
He frowned as he eyed the confusion of folders and papers on his desk, a sign of the heavy caseload he’d seen today. His shoulders tensed at the clutter. Each morning Molly, his faithful girl Friday, put a list of appointments on his clean desk and the files of each patient to be seen on her desk. Somehow by evening, every file ended up on his desk.
It wasn’t Molly’s fault. He liked to keep each file with him through the parental consult that ended each visit. He’d also noticed that the parent, worried over her child’s illness, seemed to take comfort in the evidence of his busyness. It confirmed her decision to make him her child’s physician.
Then too, Molly wasn’t allowed in his office except by invitation. She’d broken that rule only once, and he knew she’d never do it again. Still, he should not have to live with such disorder. He clicked his intercom. “Molly, come get these files, please.”
His voice was a bit too abrupt, but he needed to see the desk all ordered, immaculate. Stress sometimes made him compulsive, and now was definitely one of those times as he dealt with that oh-so-charming thorn in his side, Abby.
Five minutes later he ran a hand over the surface of his desk. Its beauty and size pleased him immensely after all the years in med school when he worked on an old door set on two little towers of cinder blocks he’d stolen from a building site. The gleaming cherry, the vast expanse, the gold-plated triangular sign reading “Sean M. Schofield, M.D.” sitting on the far left side, even the high-backed executive chair done in soft black leather—all made him feel the power of his position, the sweetness of escape. He sank back into the enveloping comfort of his black leather, enjoying the sensation of his shoulders relaxing. Order. Control. They were the secrets of life. Exerting them over others was life’s great pleasure.
He’d been disappointed that Abby was so cheerful at lunch today. He thought she’d be reeling from all the nasty things written about her, whispered about her, squirming like a worm on a hook as she drowned in a stream of accusations.
But no, she had smiled, been attentive to him, encouraged his interest in her. It must be that the librarian chose not to mention the first letter. Well, she couldn’t ignore the second one. Allegations of impropriety toward a child were a death knell t
o anyone’s reputation, doubly so to one who dealt with children.
Too bad McCoy hadn’t been around to add his evil touch to this whole process. No one could do bad as well as he. Sean remembered how McCoy had faced down Win Johnson in sixth grade.
Win had complained to the teacher that McCoy was trying to copy math off him. Mrs. Patton had then read McCoy the riot act, threatening him with failure. Like McCoy cared about his grades.
He did, however, care about Win carrying tales. Honor dictated that adults not be brought into kid problems, and Win had violated that code. For the rest of the year, McCoy stole Win’s homework as often as he could, copied all the answers onto his own homework, changed all of Win’s solutions by one or two digits, then sat back, laughing as Win failed paper after paper. On tests, he switched answers too, several times making the changes on Mrs. Patton’s own desk when she was busy in another part of the room or had stepped into the hall.
“McCoy is after me,” Win sobbed to Mrs. Patton, thereby earning everyone’s double scorn.
“Not me,” McCoy said. “Why should I bother with him when he’s getting so many wrong, and I’m getting them all right?”
Of course McCoy went on to major in violence and hate, but Sean always admired his early cleverness. In fact, he remembered it many years later as a college sophomore. By that time he had decided med school was his ticket out of the Pines.
Early on it became obvious that the competition for grades high enough to get into med school was intense. When Dr. Hager, four months from retirement at the ripe age of seventy, set up an old-fashioned lab test where everyone walked from station to station viewing slides through a light microscope, Sean made certain he was one of the first to go through the exam. As he left several stations, he carefully brushed his thumb on the edge of the slide, shifting it enough that the students following were looking at something Dr. Hager hadn’t planned on. Under the guise of reviewing before he handed his work in, he returned to several stations, correcting ones he’d corrupted, misaligning some he’d not touched previously.