Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans

by DeMaio, Joanne

  Eva turns away, pulls the bacon from the oven and sets it on the stovetop, then slams the oven door. “Well fine, if that’s how you have to do it. But I’m warning you, really. Taylor and Matt can’t stand seeing me like this much longer, either. It’s best for all of us to just know.”

  Maris’ eyes open, and she lies still in the dark. For a moment she thinks she is still at her father’s house in Addison. She drove there when she left the attorney’s office, parked in the driveway and studied the colonial, trying to remember anything that might help her put the pieces of that home movie together. Then she walked through it, glancing into the empty rooms, sitting on the sofa left behind, watching the neighborhood through the living room window.

  Now the sea air drifts in the window above her head and her eyes adjust to the night sky, its constellations linking planets and universes together. She is back at Stony Point.

  She walks through the living room, past the overflowing bookcases, past the cherry writing desk, past the brocade furniture. There is a panic to her rushing through the colonial house as she heads up the stairs. Wait. Colonial house? Or cottage? The hallway seems longer and longer now as she walks through it, looking. It goes on and on, the doors to the side coming one after the other after the other, the hall extending further again with each step she takes. She looks to one side, then the other, struggling to reach the end.

  Her pace quickens to a run, to her own room where she finally throws herself on the bed, hiding her eyes, blocking what she saw out the window when she’d stood on her toes and moved the straight curtain aside. The morning sun had made her squint. A blanket of white snow carpeted the grass beneath the dogwood, and the stroller leaned against boxes set in the driveway as her father put the baby in the car.

  “Angie?” she had called out. “Bye, Angie.” There was nothing left. No matter how many times she went down the hall and looked in that bedroom doorway for all the years to come, all the familiar baby stuff, the crib, the changing table, the mobile and music box and toys that must have filled it, they were all gone. But soon that is gone, too, that memory, and all she has is a vague sense of something missing. She’d been afraid to ever go in that room again.

  With a gasp, she sits up in her bed, perspiring, and quickly reaches for the lamp, turning on the light to be sure of exactly where she is. Then she goes downstairs and walks through all the rooms in the cottage, leaving a light on in each and every one, illuminating the vase of spiky cattails, the hurricane lamps on the mantle, the stand of wooden herons, the wicker baskets hanging from ceiling beams, the white painted kitchen shutters. Everything, everything has to be seen and visible to assure her it was all a dream just now, only a dream.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The nice thing about being on vacation is getting out of bed in the morning and putting on your bathing suit, having nowhere to go except the beach. Nothing to do but sit in the sun. No plans to make except deciding when to walk down the length of the beach, the sea at your feet, the sun at your back.

  And Lauren does all of this, every day. But the days following the Foley’s reunion test her after Kyle spent the night. Her walks on the beach trailing behind her children grow slower. Her time beneath the umbrella passes differently. This is Kyle’s last week working at the diner. Then he will be here, and so Lauren wonders about their night together last week, and if it was even about Kyle or more about missing Neil. It’s just that Kyle is always there, stepping into Neil’s place. So is that what her marriage is about? Kyle is there, Neil isn’t.

  On the front porch now, with her thoughts mingling with the early morning birdsong, Hailey’s coloring books and crayons lay spread all over the floor. She knows why her daughter spends hours absorbed in the pictures, her little arm moving back and forth, fingers pausing over the selection of colors. It takes her out of the moment, somehow, concealing the fissure in their family as she talks to the puppies and trees and clouds she colors. Lauren crouches down and places the crayons in the box, pressing them into neat, even rows. When she stands, the bottom of the box slips open and the crayons all slide out, plinking to the floor, a few of them breaking in the fall. And so she crouches and picks them up again, her hand cupping the bottom of the box, stopping after every third or fourth crayon to wipe a tear from her face.

  It isn’t the crayons and she knows it. It is that there is a fissure. It is that Kyle always makes so much out of nothing, and she has to go see him now. He’ll revisit last week in a look. Lauren tells herself that the gin eased her into bed with him after Foley’s. She didn’t resist him, moving easily beneath his touch. And it felt good.

  Damn good, she thinks, wondering if it was the thoughts of Neil earlier that night that made it so good. Or maybe it was only a little bit of easy sex on a warm summer night. The next morning Kyle drove her car to his temporary job at The Dockside, his pickup truck landed in the shop and she was left stranded at the beach. Real life stared down any leftover hopes from the night before.

  Not for Kyle, though. He arm-wrestled real life, and very early the next morning, before he had gone to work, he touched her and she still eased into his arms. “Feel nice?” he whispered after making love to her again. She nodded against his chest. “Better, even,” he said, “than last night.”

  “Maybe,” Lauren answered.

  Kyle sat up, propping the pillow behind him, his fingers playing with her hair. “See? It’s proof, Lauren. All because of fate. I read in the Sunday paper that fate gives richness to life. That we find deep meaning in questions about destiny, or whatever you want to call it. If my battery didn’t die, I never would have found you last night, and would I be here right now?”

  Lauren didn’t believe in fate. Destiny didn’t bring them together. Real life did. “Let me answer your question. It wasn’t fate. It was the alcohol and the dancing, Kyle.”

  “No,” he argued, dragging his finger along the line of fate on her open palm. “See? We still have a chance.” She watched him stroke her palm. “If you didn’t love me, I doubt you’d be lying here like this.”

  Lauren closed her eyes, picturing herself like he saw her, stretched out naked beneath the sheet. She turned on her side. “The gin did it, Kyle. That’s all.”

  “So you’re still under its influence now? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No. You know what I mean.”

  They stayed there for a long time, neither one talking. Because whenever they started to talk, they seemed to lose something else. By the end of that day, by the time he had worked a full shift in the diner cooking and cleaning and managing and locking up, by the time she’d spent hours on the beach with the kids, swimming and sandcastle building and reading, and then returned to the cottage to shower and cook dinner, by the time Kyle brought her car back, Lauren’s worry came true. He wanted to spend the night again.

  She drove him to the garage to get his truck with its new battery and clean oil and a hefty charge to pay. “We had a deal,” she said in the parking lot before he got out of the car. She worried that he’d get into his pickup and drive to the cottage. He sat in the passenger seat wearing his work clothes, the black pants and a black tee. His face needed a shave at the end of the day and he looked tired. “The first two weeks apart, to think about things. And don’t you have to plan the week’s menus anyway? And log the receipts?”

  “I’ve been going in early to do paperwork before the diner opens. And come on, Ell. What about last night? And this morning?”

  “Don’t make something out of nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing? Is that what you call it?” He glanced away as he inhaled deeply. “Is that what everything with me is? Nothing much? I’m just a substitute for the real thing?”

  “Kyle, give it a rest.”

  “A rest? Neil’s dead, Lauren. That’s who you were singing to in Foley’s, weren’t you? Neil. And that’s who you wished you were with last night. You were drunk, Lauren, good and drunk and missing a ghost.” He pressed his arm to his swe
ating forehead.

  “I didn’t want this, Kyle,” Lauren answered, her voice flat.

  “This?” he asked, motioning his hand between them. “But you did. We were engaged when you started screwing around. It was just a stupid fling you had.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  “Then why didn’t you cut me loose back then? After he died.” He stared at her, his look daring her to answer, before getting out of the car and walking away. Kyle didn’t come back to the cottage that night. In fact, she hasn’t seen him since then, not even over the weekend.

  Now she has to. She is running low on cash and Kyle won’t be at the cottage until the weekend coming up. Maybe. If they are even still together. The kids are at swim lessons and she signed them up for a nature walk along the beach afterward, so if she leaves now, there is time to drive to the diner. Kyle will have cash on him. Or she can borrow from Eva or Maris. She hates to do that, though, so decides on the lesser of two evils and pulls on a pair of denim shorts over her swimsuit. In this heat, no one will even look twice.

  On the way to The Dockside, someone is hammering a sign onto a front lawn. It is two towns over from Eastfield, and she makes a mental note of the street’s location. If the crayons hadn’t fallen from the box, fate would have had her pass the street minutes before the sign went up. Destiny. She shakes the thought from her mind.

  All morning long, eggs, hash browns, bacon and sausage cooked simultaneously. The breakfast orders on the carousel in front of him never let up. He adjusts the flame beneath the hash browns, slowing the cooking down. The other burners look good, each a different heat from the next, depending on the food. He watches and lifts and flips, making sure the food will be done all at the same time. The sense of control, the coordination of cooking, comes naturally to him. He grabs a pre-warmed plate and fills another order. The good thing about being so busy is that the constant stream of beach tourists keeps him from wondering if Lauren might ever drop in. So when he places the plate on the high shelf for the waitress, he is surprised to see her sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee, watching him. He turns away, then looks again. A sunny-side up egg begins to sizzle. After doling the remaining food onto three more plates, he asks Rob to take over. On his way out front, he stops in the office, puts his hands on his knees and takes a long breath. Even so, it doesn’t help to get enough air to reach his lungs.

  But still, Kyle takes any sign from Lauren as a positive one, one that signifies the beginning of the end of their troubles rather than the end of their marriage. He finally comes out from the kitchen wiping his hands on a damp towel. Even his hands sweat now.

  “Hey, Ell,” he says as she sips her coffee. She is tanned after spending more than a week at the beach and the sun has lightened her blonde hair. “I’ve only got a minute.” He never takes his eyes off of her, though, standing behind the counter and waiting.

  “Kyle, how’s it going?”

  He nods, not breaking his gaze.

  “Listen,” she begins, speaking quietly. “I’m a little short on cash. Do you have anything on you or should I run to the bank?”

  He looks up at the ceiling, taking another long, deep breath.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing.” He pulls his wallet from his back pocket and thumbs through the bills. “How’s eighty for now?”

  “Good. That’ll hold me over for a couple of days.” She takes the money and slips it into her handbag. “Thanks.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “I’ll pick up my check from the employment agency at the end of the week.”

  He studies her, trying to read her for a clue, an answer, some sort of invitation between the lines. Anything. A quick smile, a nervous gaze, a blush even. “Kids okay?”

  “They’re fine. They’re having a good time.” She tips back her mug, catching the last few drops of coffee. “You better get back. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Bother me?” He slips his fingers around his shirt neckline and drops his head, trying to loosen the shirt or relieve tension in his neck. Something has to give.

  “Kyle? What’s wrong?”

  He leans forward, elbows on the counter, and stops inches from her face. “Us,” he says in a low voice. “I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I miss you and the kids so much I can’t even breathe.”

  “Kyle.” She glances around and whispers back, “Seriously? We’re talking about this here?”

  “Listen, Ell.” He stands straight and when he stretches his neck, catches the eye of the couple sitting further down the counter. All the booths at the windows are full. A moment passes and his chest rises with a deep breath. He leans very close to Lauren again, his elbows on the counter between them, their faces nearly touching. “How can I say this?” He bows his head, thinking. “Don’t say that to me. You don’t bother me.” When he looks up at Lauren’s pretty grey eyes, at her sun-freckled skin, it all feels so close, but he can’t reach her. She lets everything else, which is Neil, get in their way. “Just remember that, okay? You never bother me.”

  She slings her straw handbag over her shoulder, shifts on the stool and stares at him. When he nods at her and steps back, she turns and walks out the door. He watches her go out into the heat, leaving behind only a mirage that fades as she pulls her car out of the parking lot and merges with the morning traffic.

  “I thought we’d have some time to talk. Mondays are usually slow.” Eva hangs up the phone. “Let me jot this down, a leaky hot water heater in one cottage and a dead refrigerator in another.”

  “People so don’t want those problems on their vacations.”

  “No kidding. Now where were we?” Eva asks as she sits at her kitchen table while writing down names and appliances. The telephone rings again and Eva’s face drops. “Oy,” she says, standing to answer the call. She talks to a client who wants to see two new listings, at the same time glancing to Maris sitting in the window seat, waiting with a steaming mug of coffee in her hands.

  “There goes our good, long cup of coffee,” Eva says when she hangs up, sits and grabs a quick sip from her mug.

  “It’s okay,” Maris tells her. “You’ve got a full plate today. Business emergencies, job pressure, and all the while wondering if you’re pregnant?”

  “I know, do you believe it? And while trying to plan my dinner for you two.”

  “Forget the dinner, Eva. Your house is like a war zone right now, it’s too much.”

  “To put it mildly.” The kitchen is a mess of knickknacks and framed photographs moved out of the way of the wallpaper crew working in the living room. Freshly sanded walls leave a blanket of dust over everything not covered with a drop cloth. “So how about if we take you out to dinner instead? Would you mind?”

  “Mind? That’d be awesome.”

  “Good. Because you and Jason did so much for us this summer and we really want to thank you both. I never would’ve picked that sand dollar wallpaper without you.”

  “Is Wednesday still good?”

  Eva nods. “Definitely. After Scott showed up, I was afraid you might leave for Chicago right away.”

  “I’d never do that to you, take off without notice. But now you’d better take off and meet that refrigerator delivery.”

  Eva stands and moves beside Maris on the window seat. Sunshine comes in behind them along with the scent of the sea. “Hey. Everyone can wait ten minutes,” she says, lacing fingers with her best friend. “You had so much to tell me, and not only about Scott. Something about your family?”

  “It’s a long story, we’ll talk later. It’s okay.”

  “Well tell me about Scott anyway?”

  “I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to repair this, Eva. Not after he flew back to Chicago the next morning.”

  “Of all nights for him to show up, it probably didn’t help to find you in Foley’s sitting with Jason.”

  “Probably not.”

  “And what about the engagement? I’m not seeing the ring. Did you get it f
rom the jewelers yet?”

  “I did. But nothing’s definite right now. It may happen, it may not.”

  “Have you talked to Scott since?”

  “Two nights ago. He’s worried now. He wants us to stay together and said he’ll wait me out.”

  “You mean while your dad’s house sells?”

  “Partly.”

  “There’s more? What’s going on?”

  “When you have time. But Scott did say that if he flies out again, it’ll be only to see me. There’s no pressure to hurry back until I’m ready.”

  “Well at least you have that.” Eva checks her watch before turning her apologetic eyes on Maris. “And I’ve got to reschedule the rest. I’m really sorry. Rain check?” She slips out of the seat.

  “Anytime. I’ll let myself out. Go take care of your business.”

  “Okay. And I’ll call you about dinner.” Eva rushes upstairs to her bedroom where she stops and runs her hands over her flat stomach. The coffee leaves her feeling woozy. Or the heat does. She stops in the bathroom to put on lipstick, wondering if it could be more than the heat bothering her today.

  Lauren counts the side streets following the traffic light, watching for the third street on the right. When she turns the corner, she sees the sign halfway down. It has bright red letters on a black background, reading For Rent.

  Doing this now, it feels like the divorce has formally begun. She parks on the street in front of the blue colonial duplex, taking a look at the place from the car. The lawn and bushes are trimmed, the house vinyl sided and the yard fenced in. The street seems quiet, which will be good for the kids.