The Guest Cottage

by Nancy Thayer

  “I’m sure.” Sophie smiled and sipped more wine. She noticed over Hristo’s shoulder a baby grand at the other end of the room. “You have a piano.”

  “A souvenir of the years when I was in a rock band.”

  “Do you play?”

  “If I’m in the mood to torture the seagulls. You?”

  “I used to.” Sophie put her drink on the coffee table and half rose. Was it the wine? The wine, yes, and the continuing sense of floating dreaminess that pervaded the air of the island. She was drawn to the instrument as if by some kind of mesmerism. “May I?”

  “Please.”

  Sophie drifted across the room, seated herself on the bench, and put her hands on the ivory keys. What was there about this island that was bringing it all back to her, the longing, the fulfillment? A lilting Strauss waltz seemed to drop from her fingers onto the keys, and as had happened in the guest cottage, the music carried her off, separating her from the room, from reality. Both joy and sorrow rose within her, tangling, caressing, and tugging her into memories.

  “Mom! You’re doing it again!”

  Lacey and Desi stood on the stairs, gawking at her.

  “Come down, girls,” Hristo said. “I’ve got to throw dinner together. You two can set the table.” He turned to Sophie. “You play beautifully.”

  Sophie said, “Thank you.” She moved away from the piano. “Will you reward me with food?”

  Hristo smiled. “Yes. Please join me in the kitchen.”

  Sophie leaned against the counter, watching as Hristo quickly stir-fried spring vegetables and tuna that he tossed over pasta. As they ate, Hristo focused the conversation on the girls, the events they might wish to attend this summer, and what sports they played. Afterward, Desi and Lacey were excused to make ice-cream sundaes in the kitchen while Hristo and Sophie went out to the deck to look at the night sky.

  “Your daughter’s nice,” Hristo said.

  “So is Desi. I’m glad they’ve met. It makes this summer so much happier for Lacey.” Sophie was leaning on the railing, half listening to the waves.

  “You’ve got a son, too?”

  “Yes. Jonah. He’s fifteen. I think he’s beginning to grow up, and, I hate to say it, to grow away from me. We used to be such chums. Now he doesn’t hang out with me or confide in me. It’s to be expected, but I do worry about him, because he’s changing so much.”

  “Do you think he’d like to go out with me on my boat?” Hristo asked. “We could all go. I have a small yacht docked at Great Harbor Yacht Club.”

  “Oh! Jonah doesn’t know how to sail, but I’m sure he’d love to go out with you.” She couldn’t disguise the pleasure in her voice. “We all would. This is extremely kind of you.”

  Hristo moved closer to her, leaning his tanned, strong arms on the railing a few inches away from her. “Maybe I have an ulterior motive.”

  She felt his gaze on her like heat. He was flirting with her. She was sure that flirting was as easy for him as breathing, probably a natural talent he had polished to use in his work as well as in his private life. Sophie, on the other hand, hadn’t flirted for years. She’d had sex with only one man in all her life: Zack, that massive skunk. She froze, desperate to come up with a clever retort.

  “Oh, you must have heard about my paella.” Proud of herself, she twinkled up at him. “I’ll make it some night and invite you and Desi to dinner.”

  Hristo stepped closer to her. “I’d like that.”

  Sophie swayed. She was having trouble catching her breath.

  Hristo was cool. “I have to go to New York for a few days on business. Could I take you out to dinner next Tuesday?”

  “I think that evening’s free,” she said coolly.

  “Great. I’ll call you.” He slid the glass door open and they returned to the bright lights of the house, where the girls sat giggling on the sofa.

  “It was funny watching you, Dad,” said Desi. “Kind of like watching an old movie.”

  “Well,” Hristo responded without missing a beat, “we are old people.”

  “Time to go home, Lacey,” Sophie said.

  Lacey, as expected, protested, but Sophie was firm. Soon they were driving back from the beach to their summer home.

  The three pitiful males ate their casserole in front of the television. The Red Sox were rained out, and even though they cruised through the channel guide twice, they couldn’t find anything that would satisfy a four-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, and a grown male. Trevor’s mood slumped until he had an inspiration.

  “Jonah, do you know how to play poker?”

  Jonah shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Come on then. I’ll teach you.”

  They sat at the dining room table, Leo on Trevor’s lap, Jonah waiting patiently as Trevor explained the face cards to Leo. They had a fresh deck of cards, but no chips, so they used paper clips from Trevor’s office. It wasn’t a great game with only two players—and Leo occasionally spontaneously yelping, “Look, Daddy, you got the king!”—but it was still fun. Trevor taught Jonah straight and stud poker and five-card draw. When Leo started yawning, Trevor stopped the game to take his son to bed.

  “I’m gonna check Facebook,” Jonah said, loping away up the stairs. Over his shoulder, he said casually, “Thanks, man.”

  When Leo was in bed and Jonah secluded in his room, Trevor sat in front of his computer and scanned his work log. Nothing urgent. He opened up a computer game but it couldn’t hold his attention. Sophie going off for dinner with that guy had really gotten under Trevor’s skin and with his analytical mind, he wanted to figure out why.

  He’d only known the woman for a short while, for Pete’s sake. She wasn’t the most babealicious female he’d ever seen, but what he felt for her wasn’t lust. Okay, it was lust, but there was a whole lot more going on, too. He liked the way she was in the world, genuine, engaged, easily capable. He really enjoyed hearing her play the piano, although she did it so seldom. He liked her cooking. He liked the way she gathered daisies from the roadside and set them around the house. He liked the way she received with optimism and a gentle acceptance what the world threw at her. She hadn’t freaked out when the Manchesters came; she hadn’t made a scene, shouting that she hadn’t agreed to cook for a crowd. Instead, she’d made a great meal, including a blueberry and strawberry cheesecake, maybe the best dessert he’d ever eaten. He liked the way she sent Jonah or Lacey down to give Old Man Connor chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven or a bowl of fruit salad.

  She was always doing mundane things naturally, without fuss. Like tossing the kitchen dish towels into the laundry and replacing them with fresh ones. Humming while she vacuumed. Her entire approach to each day made him reflect on his own values. Trevor was far from impoverished. He had some family money, and he did staggeringly well with his computer business. Yet he lived in a small apartment in Cambridge that he’d begun to rent when he was a grad student at MIT.

  These two weeks with Sophie made him understand that he lived a pretty childish life in a rather slapdash manner. True, he hadn’t had time to think about the niceties of life during the past five years; he’d been too busy taking care of his son and buying diapers, bottles, a crib, clothes, and then soft shoes, snow boots, sneakers, backpacks, lunchboxes—an explosion of necessities.

  When Trevor’s mother came to help him with the newborn baby, and many other times during Leo’s life, she had never commented on the way Trevor and Tallulah chose to live. It had surprised Trevor that she was willing to admit she was a grandmother. In fact she seemed to dote on Leo and visited often, taking care of him, taking him to museums and parks, and cooking the food Leo liked: macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, cheese-and-mustard sandwiches. Tallulah and his mother got along all right, especially because Tallulah was rarely in the apartment; she was usually off rehearsing, acting, or auditioning. Audrey never mentioned the furnishings and Leo never noticed the decor; why would he? He was a child.

  Sophie probably tho
ught that Trevor wasn’t much more than a child himself, with his stupid T-shirts with slogans on them that various computer companies sent him as gifts and that worked nicely as pajamas or shirts. No wonder she had gone to dinner with that European guy. What was his name? Trevor remembered: Hristo Fotev. Russian? Anyone who had a house right on Surfside Beach had to have a lot of money. Maybe, Trevor thought, hopefully, this Fotev guy was part of the Russian Mafia.

  He went to his computer. He was going to check out the dude.

  His fingers flew over the keyboard and he grew more and more miserable. This Fotev guy was a real multitalented, multinational master of the universe. He was CEO of his own company and sat on the boards of several major refugee aid organizations. His uncle had left Bulgaria before the Communists took over the country. He took the family fortune with him to England and later into the United States. When his brother, Hristo’s father, was thirty, he and his wife moved to the United States, and Hristo was born there in 1970. After the Communists left the country in 1989, the Fotevs returned to Bulgaria to reclaim some of their property. When Hristo’s uncle died, he left his fortune and his love of the country to Hristo.

  He was still searching when he heard the front door open and Lacey babbling to her mother as they entered.

  He couldn’t help himself. He went downstairs, as eager as a storybook spinster to hear about the evening.

  It must have gone well, because Sophie was glowing.

  “Oh, hello, Trevor. Are you still up?” Sophie’s laugh was like a tinkling of chimes. “Of course you’re still up—you’re standing right there.”

  Trevor narrowed his eyes, wondering whether Sophie was a bit buzzed.

  Lacey cried, “Trevor, Trevor! Desi has the most awesome house! And they have—”

  Sophie interrupted, “Trevor doesn’t want to hear about all that.”

  “Yes, I do,” Trevor said, biting the inside of his mouth for saying it so quickly.

  “Desi has a room like a princess, and she has five American Girl dolls!” Lacey’s eyes were shining. “And wardrobes for all their clothes, and—”

  “Lacey, why don’t you go up and write about this in your diary? And it really is time to go to bed. I let you stay up late tonight.”

  Like a slaphappy ballerina, Lacey twirled her way up the stairs, singing.

  “I’d better go to bed, too,” said Sophie, yawning.

  “Did you have a good time?” Trevor folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall in what he hoped appeared to be a casual, inviting way.

  Sophie’s smile was almost smug. “I had a wonderful time.” She did the thing with her shoulders she did when she was especially happy, sort of lifting them up and squeezing them toward her ears. “Everything here okay?”

  “Fine,” Trevor replied. What else could he say? I spent the evening checking out your new boyfriend?

  “See you tomorrow, then,” said Sophie, and she drifted away from him up the stairs as if invisible wings carried her.

  During the night, the wind rose, whispering through the windows with cool scents of rain. Sophie left her bed still half asleep to close the windows in her children’s room and pull the covers up over their shoulders.

  When she woke in the morning, a heavy rain slanted down against the house, tapping on the walls and windows. Pulling on her light cotton robe against the sudden coolness, she went into the kitchen. It was after eight o’clock and no one else was awake. She made coffee and took it into the living room, curled up on the sofa, and picked up a novel to read.

  It was sweet to be awake and alone even for a brief time on this rainy day. She wondered what Hristo and his daughter were doing. Clearly he was a good father. He was a fascinating man, and his foreignness gave him an almost dangerous exotic allure. Last night she had felt as if she were playing a game, trying on a different personality, performing a part in his spontaneous play. Was the real Sophie Anderson the woman in that glamorous house last night? She hated being such a cliché female, her tidy mind zooming from one delightful evening to the possibility of years together. But why kid herself? She was no cosmopolitan starlet. She’d forgotten the French she’d had in high school. She was only a suburban mom with two children and even though her marriage was rocky if not right on the rocks, for the time being she still had a husband. So she should stop trying to predict the future and enjoy the present. Wasn’t that what everyone said? Be here now. She looked back down at her novel and forced herself to concentrate.

  Later, when everyone else was up, the rain still thundered down, insistent and relentless. Sophie and Trevor decided to drive into town to visit the Whaling Museum with the children. Afterward, they went to lunch at the Downyflake. The restaurant was packed, as usual, but when they were finally seated, the food arrived quickly and all conversation ceased as they devoured blueberry pancakes and bacon, licking blueberry syrup off their lips. By unanimous vote, they bought a bag of the famous doughnuts to take home for later. Later for Jonah and Lacey turned out to be during the ride home. “Save one for me!” Sophie demanded as she steered through the rain.

  Back at home, they ran from the minivan through the downpour into the house. Everyone scattered to his or her own place. It was the perfect day to read or nap, to enjoy some solitude after days of togetherness.

  At the end of the afternoon, the rain moderated but the sky was still overcast, sending a slanting blue-gray light through the wet windows. Sophie stretched. As if caught in a spell, she drifted out of the living room into the opulent music room, where the piano waited in its grand isolation. She sat down on the bench, placing her fingers on the cool ivory keys, welcoming a gentle Brahms melody. Why could she play so readily at this house when she hadn’t touched a piano for years? As she played she forgot to wonder. She lost herself in the music.

  Exactly when Leo entered the room, Sophie didn’t know. Only when she had finished one piece did she realize the small boy was standing just inside the doorway, watching her. When she saw his expression, she understood at once. In his face she saw both desire and fear.

  “Would you like to come sit with me?” she invited Leo in a calm, almost indifferent tone.

  Leo nodded. Slowly he approached her. Sophie lifted him up onto the bench.

  “These are called keys. You press down like this to make the music come out.” Gently she indented middle C. Next to her, Leo put his index finger on a key and pressed. “Harder,” she told him. “Don’t be afraid. You can’t hurt it.”

  Leo punched the keys and burst into a smile when the notes sounded. Glancing up at Sophie for approval, he placed all five fingers on the keys, producing a cluster of noise. Excited by that, he put his other hand on the keyboard and pounded away.

  “That was loud, but it wasn’t very pretty, was it? Here, let me show you how to play a tune.” She lifted Leo onto her lap, placed his right hand on the keyboard, and put her hand over his, pressing each finger slowly so that a rather warped version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” floated into the air. Leo looked up at Sophie, eyes sparkling.

  “Again!” he demanded.

  Sophie hadn’t taught piano before but Leo was such an attentive student, pleased by the slightest passage that sounded like a familiar melody, willing to sit quietly listening to her explain the names of the keys and how to play a scale. Like his father, he was tall and lanky and his small hand had long fingers. When he made a mistake, they both giggled.

  —

  Trevor heard the music from his second-floor bedroom/office. First, rhapsodic music, then a pause, then tentative one-note clinking. He quietly went down the stairs and stood at the door looking at his son sitting on Sophie’s lap, determinedly pushing down the black and white keys. Over and over again. Hitting sour notes, without any rhythm. Sophie’s arms were around his son, her graceful neck bent as she murmured so quietly into Leo’s ear that Trevor couldn’t hear her words. Leo pressed the keys over and over again, and then like a bird lifting off from its nest, “Twinkle,
Twinkle, Little Star” emerged as a full-fledged tune into the air.

  Trevor saw Leo look up at Sophie. “I did it!”

  “You learn fast, Leo. I think you are a natural pianist.”

  Leo giggled. “That sounds like ‘penis.’ ”

  Sophie chuckled. “Silly. The word is pianist. Say it.” She pronounced the three syllables slowly.

  “Pi-an-ist,” Leo echoed back, solemnly.

  “Excellent. A pianist plays the piano. Do you want to try it again?”

  Leo nodded eagerly. Trevor quietly slipped out of sight into the hallway, taking deep breaths to fight the tears in his eyes and calm the wave of emotion that had swept over him at the sight of his son sitting so happily on Sophie’s lap.

  Trevor returned to his office to work halfheartedly and absentmindedly, his ears practically aimed backward like a horse’s to catch sound from downstairs. When it stopped, he heard his son running up the stairs and into his bedroom/Lego room. Should he say something? He didn’t want to go all sentimental and gooey and ruin the experience for his son, so he forced himself to wait until they all went down for dinner and simply said, “Cool piano playing, Leo.”

  —

  That night the entire household watched a funny Jim Carrey movie while eating popcorn. The next day dawned gray and thunderous, with ominous rumbling from the east and a persistent wind. After breakfast, Jonah biked off to meet his surf buddies in town. Lacey called Desi, but her friend wasn’t available that day. Lacey slumped around the house for a while, bothering her mother, who was trying to read, insisting that she was bored and didn’t like any of her books. After a while, Lacey went upstairs, returning with arms full of sheets and blankets, and began to construct a fort out of the dining room table. She put the biggest sheet over the table so that it hung down to the floor. When Trevor went down to get more coffee, he heard voices. Leo was in the fort with her and they were making plans in whispers.