by Sandra Brown
“For one thing, I’m an outsider, immediately distrusted because my great-great-great-grandparents didn’t hail from these mountains.”
She smiled, acknowledging that he’d accurately described the prevailing regional attitude. “The people around here can be clannish.”
“I’m a visitor, but I’ve been coming here often enough that a lot of people at least know my name and speak when they see me. Welcome me back. That kind of thing. But whenever I go to the soda fountain at Ritt’s for my morning coffee, I still sit alone at the counter. I’ve never been invited to join the good ol’ boys’ club that fills up the booths every morning. Dutch Burton, Wes Hamer, a few others, all who grew up here. That’s a closed clique. Not that I want to be included, but they’re not even friendly enough to say hello.”
“Then accept my apology for them.”
“Trust me, it’s not that important. But I wondered,” he began, then hesitated.
“What?”
“I wondered if . . . if the reason for him avoiding me was that you might have mentioned me to him.”
She ducked her head. “No. That is, not until yesterday.”
He said nothing in response to that, so after a long moment, it was left to her to fill the ponderous silence. “I was surprised to see you in town. Haven’t you run out of things around here to write about?”
“It’s not subject matter that’s bringing me back, Lilly.”
The bait he’d thrown out was dangerous but enticing and impossible to resist. She raised her head and looked across at him. He said, “I sold an article about our day on the river.”
“I know. I read it.”
“Yeah?” he asked, obviously pleased.
She nodded. “That water sports magazine and mine have the same publisher, so I receive complimentary copies. I was thumbing through an issue and spotted your byline.” Actually, she’d been perusing that and similar magazines for months, wondering if he’d written and sold an article about the kayaking excursion.
“It was great writing, Tierney.”
“Thanks.”
“Truthfully. Your descriptions were vivid. They captured the excitement we experienced. Catchy title, too. ‘The Tempestuous French Broad.’ ”
He grinned. “I thought that would grab those not in the know. You had to read the article to learn that’s the name of the river.”
“It was a good piece.”
“It was a good day,” he came back in a low and stirring voice.
Early June, last summer. They’d been two of a dozen people who’d signed up for a daylong whitewater kayaking excursion. They’d met on the bus that transported the group several miles upriver, where they put in for the wild ride through several Class Three and Class Four rapids.
Equally skilled, they’d fallen into a natural comradery, especially after discovering that their careers were, as Tierney had put it, “kissing cousins.” He was a freelance writer who sold articles to magazines; she was a magazine editor.
When the group put ashore for lunch, they separated from the others and sat together on a large boulder that was cantilevered over the rushing water below.
“You’re editor in chief?” he exclaimed when she told him the position she held.
“Going on three years now.”
“I’m impressed. That’s a slick publication.”
“It started out as a magazine for the southern woman. We now have national distribution, and the numbers are increasing with each issue.”
Smart contained features on home decorating, fashion, food, and travel. Its target reader was the woman who combined homemaking with a career, who wanted it all and made it happen. An article might be about how to convert carry-out dinners into gourmet delights simply by adding a few spices from the kitchen pantry and serving the meal on good china, or a preview of shoe trends for the upcoming season.
“We certainly don’t exclude stay-at-home moms from our readership,” she’d explained, “but our focus is on the woman who wants to succeed in the office, plan the perfect family vacation, and host fabulous dinner parties she can throw together at a moment’s notice.”
“Is that possible?”
“You’ll find out how in the July issue.”
Laughing, he had toasted her success with his water bottle. The sun was warm and the conversation relaxed. They developed an easy I-like-the-looks-and-sound-of-you rapport. As much fun as they’d had in the river before lunch, they were a bit reluctant to resume when the guide announced an end to the lunch break.
Throughout the afternoon, they chatted when they could, although they were forced to concentrate on the challenge of the sport. But they were constantly aware of each other. They communicated with hand signals and smiles. Their admiration for each other’s skill allowed for good-natured teasing when one or the other went belly-up.
He shared his sunblock cream when she discovered she’d come away without any. But he also shared it with two college girls who flirted with him shamelessly and strove all day to attract his attention.
When they put in at the area where they’d left their cars that morning, Lilly went her way, he went his. But after stowing his gear in his Cherokee, he jogged over to her. “Where are you staying?”
“Cleary. I’m there most weekends during the summer. I have a cabin.”
“Nice.”
“Yes, it is.”
The college girls pulled their open Jeep even with them. “See ya later, Tierney,” the driver said.
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
“You remember the name of the place?” the other asked from the passenger seat.
He tapped his forehead. “Committed to memory.”
Ignoring Lilly but grinning conspiratorially at him, they drove away, raising a cloud of dust.
As he waved them off, he shook his head. “Party girls, begging for trouble.” Then he turned back to Lilly and smiled. “It hurts my manly pride to admit it, but you bested me with your rodeo moves coming through that last Class Four.”
She gave a mock curtsy. “Thank you very much. Coming from someone as skilled as you, that’s a real compliment.”
“The least I can do is buy you a congratulatory drink. Can we meet somewhere?”
She nodded toward the wake of dust created by the girls’ Jeep. “I thought you had plans.”
“I do,” he said. “I plan to see you.”
Her smile faltered. She got busy searching for her car keys. “Thank you, Tierney, but I have to decline.”
“Oh. What about tomorrow night?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t.” She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “My husband and I have a dinner engagement.”
His smile didn’t falter, it collapsed. “You’re married.” He said it as a statement, not a question.
She nodded.
He glanced down at her empty ring finger. His expression, a combination of bewilderment and disappointment, spoke volumes.
And then for the longest time they simply stared at each other bleakly, saying nothing, communicating only with their eyes while the fading sun coming through the trees cast dappled shadows over their unhappy faces.
Eventually, she extended her right hand. “It was wonderful meeting you, Tierney.”
He shook her hand. “Same here.”
“I’ll watch for your articles,” she said as she got into her car.
“Lilly—”
“Good-bye. Be safe.” She closed her car door quickly and drove away before he could say anything more.
That was the last time they’d had any contact until yesterday, when she spotted him across Main Street in downtown Cleary. Dutch bumped into her as she came to a sudden halt on the sidewalk. “What are you looking at?”
Tierney was just about to climb into his Cherokee when he happened to glance her way. He did a double take. They made eye contact, and it held.
“Ben Tierney,” she said, replying absently to Dutch’s question. Or perhaps she was just speaking aloud a name t
hat for the past eight months had never been far from her mind.
Dutch followed her gaze across opposing lanes of traffic and the median in between. Tierney was still standing there, half in, half out of his car, looking at her as though waiting for a signal as to what he should do.
“You know that guy?” Dutch asked.
“I met him last summer. Remember the day I kayaked the French Broad? He was in the group.”
Dutch pushed open the door to the attorney’s office where they had an appointment to sign the closing papers on the sale of the cabin. “We’re late,” he said and ushered her inside.
When they left the office a half hour later, she found herself looking up and down Main Street for the black Cherokee. She would have liked to say hello at least, but there was no sign of Tierney or his car. But now, when he was sitting four feet from her, she found it difficult to look at him and was at a loss over what to say.
Feeling his gaze on her, she looked across at him. He said, “After that day on the river, I called your office in Atlanta several times.”
“Your articles wouldn’t be for my readership.”
“I wasn’t calling to peddle an article.”
She averted her head and looked into the empty fireplace. She’d swept the ash out of it that morning, which seemed now like a very long time ago. Softly she said, “I knew why you were calling. That’s why I couldn’t take your calls. For the same reason I couldn’t meet you for a drink after our kayaking trip. I was married.”
He stood up, went around the coffee table, and joined her on the sofa, sitting close and forcing her to look at him. “You’re not married now.”
• • •
William Ritt smiled up at his sister as she cleared away his empty plate. “Thank you, Marilee. The stew was excellent.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“I’ve been thinking about running a daily special on the lunch menu. Something different for each day of the week. Wednesday meat loaf. Friday crab cakes. Would you agree to sharing your stew recipe with Linda?”
“It’s Mother’s recipe.”
“Oh. Well, she’s past caring if you share it, isn’t she?”
To anyone else’s ears the words would have sounded harsh, but Marilee knew the reason for William’s insensitivity and couldn’t fault him for it. Their parents were deceased, but neither was missed. One had been completely indifferent, the other unconscionably selfish. To them, treating their offspring with love and affection had been an alien concept.
Their father had been a stern and taciturn man. A mechanic by trade, he would get up before dawn every morning and make the trip down the mountain into town to the automotive shop where he worked. He returned home in time for dinner, which he ate methodically. He grumbled answers to direct questions but otherwise had nothing to say that wasn’t a criticism or a reprimand. After dinner he took a bath, then retired to his bedroom, closing the door behind him, shutting out his family.
Marilee had never seen him derive pleasure from anything except the vegetable garden he cultivated each summer. It was his pride and joy. She was seven years old when her father caught her pet rabbit nibbling at a cabbage plant. He’d wrung its neck right in front of her and made her mother fry it for their supper. Marilee considered it poetic justice when he dropped dead of a heart attack while hoeing a row of onions.
Their mother had been a complainer and a hypochondriac who referred to her husband as an uncouth hillbilly behind his back. For forty years she made sure everyone knew that she’d married far beneath her. Her misery was the focus of her life, to the exclusion of all else.
When failing health made her practically bedridden, Marilee took a semester’s leave of absence from Cleary High School to tend to her. One morning when Marilee tried to awaken her, she discovered that her mother had died in her sleep. Later, while the minister consoled her with platitudes, Marilee’s only thought was that a woman as embittered and self-absorbed as her mother hadn’t deserved such a peaceful departure.
The two children of these emotionally disabled people had learned early in life to be self-sufficient. Their family home had been on the far side of Cleary Peak, away from town, isolated from neighborhoods where children played together. Their parents had been lacking in social skills, so neither she nor William had been taught them. The ways and means of how people interacted had been awkwardly acquired in public school.
William was a good student who’d applied himself to scholastics. His efforts were rewarded with excellent report cards and prizes for achievement. He tried to make friends with the same kind of determination, but his overzealous attempts usually had the opposite result.
Marilee had found the nurturing that was missing from her own life in the pages of books. William, being several years older, was the first to learn to read. She prevailed upon him to teach her, and by the time she was five years old she was reading literature that would challenge some adults.
With the exception of the years they were at college, she and William had lived in the same house all their lives. After their mother died, he decided it was time they move into town. It would never have occurred to him that Marilee might have plans of her own. Nor did it occur to her to live independently of him. Actually, she’d been thrilled at the prospect of leaving the ugly, sad dwelling on the mountain that evoked so many unhappy memories.
They bought a small, neat house on a quiet street. She made it into a comfortable home, full of color and light and potted plants, which had been missing in the house of her upbringing.
But after the last curtain was hung and the last room arranged, she’d looked around and realized that nothing except her surroundings had changed. Her life hadn’t taken an exciting, new direction. Her rut was prettier and better furnished, but it was still a rut.
As for the family homestead on the mountain, she would have sold it, or let it rot until the wilderness claimed it. But William had other ideas.
“The storm is going to suspend your work on the house for a while,” she remarked now as she wiped the dining table with a damp cloth, sweeping cornbread crumbs off the edge into the palm of her hand.
From behind his newspaper he said, “True. It may be days before anyone is able to navigate the main road. The back road up to our place will take even longer to clear.”
The back road to which he referred snaked up the west side of the mountain, which was always the colder, the darker, and the last to show signs of spring. “As soon as the road reopens, I’d like you to take me up there,” she said. “I want to see what you’ve done with the place.”
“It’s coming along. I hope to have it finished, not by this summer but next.”
His idea was to refurbish the house and rent it to vacationers. There were dozens of listing agents in the area that kept rental properties occupied for months during the summer and fall. He’d been doing most of the work himself, hiring contractors only when absolutely necessary. He spent virtually all his free time working on the renovation. The house would have to be razed before it held any appeal for Marilee. But William was excited about the project, so she supported it.
“I heard the old Smithson place was leasing for fifteen hundred a week last summer,” he said. “Can you believe that? And that house was practically falling down when they started the renovation. Ours will be much more desirable.”
“What were you doing with Wes and Scott Hamer this afternoon in the back of the store?”
He tipped down the corner of the newspaper and looked at her sharply. “Come again?”
“This afternoon, in the back of the store, you—”
“I heard that part. What do you mean what was I doing with them?”
“No need to take umbrage, William. I merely asked—”
“I’m not taking umbrage. It’s just a strange question, that’s all. Completely off the subject and inappropriate. Next you’ll be asking me what prescriptions my customers take when you know I can’t disclose personal information
like that.”
In truth, he was a busybody who loved to gossip, often about his customers and their medical conditions.
“Was your business with Wes and Scott something personal?”
He sighed, laying the newspaper aside, as though she’d spoiled it for him. “Personal but not confidential. Wes had called earlier, said Dora had a headache, and asked what over-the-counter analgesic I could recommend. He came by to pick it up.”
He left the table and went to the counter to refill his coffee cup. Looking at her above the rim as he took a sip, he asked, “What made you ask? Did you imagine that Wes came in just to flirt with you?”
“He wasn’t flirting with me.”
William looked at her snidely.
“He wasn’t,” she insisted. “We were just chatting.”
“Honestly, Marilee, I can’t believe you’d be flattered by Wes’s attention,” he said with what sounded like pity. “He flirts with everything that has ovaries.”
“Don’t be crude.”
“Crude?” He sputtered coffee around a short laugh. “You haven’t heard crude until you’ve heard the way Wes talks about women. Out of their hearing, of course. He uses gutter language that you probably don’t even know, and brags about his sexual conquests. The way he talks, you’d think he was still in high school. He boasts about his affairs with the same cocky attitude that he used to carry the game ball through the halls after a big victory.”
Marilee realized that most of William’s deprecation was caused by jealousy. He would have loved to have been as macho as Wes. Truth be known, he hadn’t outgrown his adolescent envy of his popular classmate. Being valedictorian didn’t have near the cachet of being captain of the football team. Not where they lived anyway.
But she also knew that what he said about Wes, while possibly exaggerated, was basically true. She was on the high school faculty with Wes Hamer. He did strut down the corridors of the school as though he owned them. He seemed to think that proprietorship was his due as athletic director. He gloried in the title and all the celebrity and privileges it implied.
“Did you know that he has seduced his own students?”
“That’s gossip,” Marilee argued softly. “Started, I believe, by the wishful-thinking girls themselves.”