Off Season

by Jean Stone

  “In April?”

  “Yes. Maybe by then you will stop feeling guilty about your grandfather and allow yourself to grieve.”

  “I don’t feel guilty.”

  “Then you don’t really think you killed him?”

  Mindy slung her shoes over her shoulder and said, “Of course I didn’t kill him. I’m a little girl. How the hell could I have killed him?” She looked out across the water. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore today. I’m going home.” The doctor did not try to stop her, which, Mindy supposed, was part of their contract, too.

  Chapter 21

  At one point in her life, Jill had worked this hard: after her divorce from Richard, when she was trying to prove she could make it on her own, that Jill McPhearson was not just another single mother but a single somebody, a woman who would reach the top.

  Then, of course, she’d met Christopher, and she was no longer single but coupled with a man, the heartthrob of the world, no less.

  She’d walked away from him to be with Ben—another man, another opportunity to screw up things but good. But this time she was determined to separate her career from the chaos, to move on despite the sandbar on which their personal lives had gone aground.

  All she needed was to keep focused on her priorities. All she needed was to do this one day at a time.

  Nonstop news of audience excitement over the impending TV reunion obsessively fueled her drive. She only needed to work through the tough spots and prove herself once again. So today, the day of Rita’s Christmas party, Jill had passed off the chicken-making to Amy and locked herself in the studio, sending out the last of her new demo reels to every independent broadcaster, including Maurice Fischer, RueCom king himself, the man who had placed his bets on Good Night, USA and had ended up a billionaire because of its success. The man who, perhaps, would someday see her worth.

  She would have laughed out loud at her obvious arrogance except for the fact that this kind of persistence—optimistic persistence—had paid off for her before.

  Glancing at her watch, she noticed she only had an hour before she was due at Rita’s. Ben, of course, would not be going; he went nowhere since he’d met with Hugh, not even to his workshop or to the cliffs at Gay Head. He said he could not stand the thought of being seen, or being whispered about once he was out of earshot. As if those things did not bother Jill; as if she did not have to reckon with grocery shopping and buying gas and wondering if the person at the next aisle or the next pump … knew.

  Ben was getting good at wrapping himself in a blanket of self-pity and sitting in the Adirondack chair on the porch. But Jill needed to do things, to move.

  While Ben remained burrowed, it had become increasingly difficult for Jill to make excuses:

  I’m sorry, Ben’s not feeling well.

  No, Ben made other plans.

  Ben? Oh, gosh, I’m sure he’d love to, but he’s working late tonight. Working on what, no one asked.

  She sealed another videotape inside a bubble-packed bag. She had not yet decided what excuse she’d give Rita for Ben’s absence tonight. She’d not yet decided what she’d say to Ben when he told her he was not going.

  The phone rang. Jill tossed the last bag onto the chair and fumbled through a stack of paperwork until she located the receiver. “Vineyard Productions,” she said boldly.

  “Jill?”

  “Hi, honey,” she said automatically, out of habit.

  “Rita’s party is in an hour. Are you coming home to change?”

  “I’m leaving in a minute,” she said. “I have a few more things to do.” She gazed around the messy office, grateful that she’d created so much busywork. She hoped there was enough to last until the trial—minus February, when she’d be gratefully away.

  “Should I wear my red sweater?” he asked. “The one you gave me last year for Christmas?”

  She pressed two fingers to her temple. “You’re going?” she asked.

  “Well, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. It’s just that lately—”

  “I know. I’ve been a stick in the old cranberry bog. Well, it’s Christmas. And if you look outside, it’s snowing. And I figured that, no matter what, at least Ashenbach can’t show up.”

  Jill knew the last remark was an attempt at humor, however misplaced.

  “Well, I’m glad,” she said. “Your red sweater will be perfect. And I’ll wear my new red dress, the one I bought in New York.”

  “Good,” he answered, though his voice sounded strained. “I’ll see you shortly then?”

  She closed her eyes and felt her heart slowly break for this strong, good, and kind man, who’d been brought to his knees by circumstance, who must be struggling for his sanity, and who was not receiving much support from his wife, who chose to work instead.

  “Look at you two, the perfect couple,” Hazel said, and without looking, Rita knew who had arrived. “Better late than never.”

  “Thank God for holidays,” Rita said spinning to greet them, “or I’d never see my gorgeous friend.” And gorgeous Jill was. In a beautiful red dress trimmed with crimson sequins, the island’s favorite celebrity looked dazzling. Ben, however, did not. He looked tired and gaunt and a little off-center.

  He leaned down and gave Rita a kiss. “What about me?” he asked. “Am I gorgeous, too?”

  “You are a handsome prince,” Rita said. “And I haven’t seen you in a hundred years. Have you gone into hibernation?”

  Ben skipped the question and remarked how festive Rita looked in her red velvet tent dress. He handed her a gift that he said was for the baby.

  “Amy brought the chicken a while ago,” Rita said, hoping Ben’s altered appearance was only her overactive imagination.

  “We just took the first tray in to serve our other guests,” Hazel said. “Come into the living room and join them.”

  The group moved into the small living room, which was crammed with people and a tree that she and her mother decorated in white and gold. Rita smiled. She liked it when her house was full of people, full of laughter.

  Someone opened the door and let some air inside, and someone else had turned up the stereo and Perry Como could almost, not quite, be heard above the chatter.

  “Punch?” she asked Jill and Ben.

  “Sure,” Jill replied.

  “Maybe later,” Ben said.

  Why wasn’t Ben drinking? she wondered. Maybe he was taking some kind of medication.

  Cancer, she wondered again, then shuddered, because this was Christmas, and there should be no thought of that.

  “Ben Niles doesn’t look right,” Hazel said when Rita returned to the kitchen for the punch.

  Rita wished Hazel hadn’t given credence to her imagination. “He’s probably tired like the rest of us.” No sense giving her mother something more to chew on.

  “Never mind, I’ll ask Amy.” Hazel adjusted her light-up dangle earrings with the tiny jingle bells.

  “Mother, please. This is Christmas.” She poured a glass of punch for Jill and went back to the living room, just as Dick Bradley of Vineyard Haven’s Mayfield House approached them.

  “Not a Christmas party passes that I’m not grateful I moved here to the island,” he said to Ben and Jill.

  Rita handed Jill the punch as Ben nodded in agreement.

  “You must meet one of my inn guests,” Bradley continued. “Everyone, this is Laura Reynolds. Dr. Laura Reynolds.”

  Jill smiled, and Ben nodded again. Rita wondered how Bradley’s new wife, Ginny, felt about the woman on her husband’s arm. Then she told herself to stop acting like an island gossip.

  “A doctor,” Jill was saying. “Are you living on the island? We need all the good doctors we can find.”

  The pretty-but-plain girl in the long, dark green wool skirt replied, “I’m a pediatric psychiatrist, actually.”

  Bradley put his hand on Laura’s shoulder just as Ginny appeared, with a confident stance and straight-arrow eye. She did not appear
to be the jealous type.

  “Laura lives in Boston,” Ginny said. “She’s here for a special case.”

  Jill said nothing; neither did Ben. In the awkward air that followed, Rita said, “Well, we all think we’re pretty special cases on this godforsaken island.”

  Polite laughter followed. Then Rita moved to chat with other guests. Less than an hour later, Jill and Ben made their excuses, saying the snow was piling up outside and that they’d better go along.

  Rita watched them go and knew she’d been right: something was wrong with the perfect couple, imagination or not.

  They walked along South Water Street toward the center of Edgartown. Ben had jammed his hands into his pockets.

  “Are you sure it’s her?” Jill asked.

  He closed his eyes and let himself feel the wet snow against his cheeks. “You heard what Bradley’s wife said—she’s here for a special case. She’s a pediatric psychiatrist. How many special cases could there be here right now?”

  Opening his eyes, he did not look at Jill, but kept his gaze steady on the street ahead. “The judge demanded that Mindy see a therapist three times a week.”

  Jill slipped her arm through his. They walked a while in silence, until South Water crossed Main Street and became North Water.

  “Honey,” she said into the darkness just before their house came into view, “I suppose there’s a good chance you’re right. But once Herb Bartlett gets here, things will be different. I know they will.”

  He leaned against her arm and wished he could cry. But his tears had vanished a long time ago, as if his pain had sucked them dry. “That’s easy for you to say. In a few weeks you’re going off to the bright lights and an old boyfriend who’d probably give just about anything to get you back into the sack.”

  She squeezed his arm. “And he doesn’t have a prayer,” she said, which eased his mind a little, because she hadn’t said that until now. Beneath a lamppost, she stopped, and he stopped with her. She looked into his eyes. “I love you, do you know that? Do you really, really know that?”

  And then his tears returned. From out of nowhere, on the damn street out in public, his eyes began to water. He stepped into her arms and pressed his cheek against hers, the snowflakes making little dots of wetness all around his tears.

  “Come on,” he whispered, “let’s go home.”

  Arm in arm they walked another block or two. And though his tears had cleared, when they saw the house, it took Ben a minute to notice the woman standing at their front door. It did not take as long for the life to drain from his body again.

  The woman looked no different than she had when Ben met her six—no, seven years ago. She’d been younger then—hell, they all had—but there were few flamboyant women on the Vineyard, and so she’d been quite memorable. The nonstop legs hadn’t hurt, either.

  And he remembered the rest. The thing he’d tried so hard to put behind him.

  His stomach squeezed itself like an accordion. His chest grew heavy.

  He stopped and stared at the woman on their front steps in the shadow of the falling snow, reflected by a brass lantern.

  “Ben?” Jill asked. “It looks like we have company.” She gestured to the front door. Ben would have turned and run but he was too damn tired and now too numb.

  “Go around back,” he ordered Jill. “Go around back and get into the house. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Take care of what?”

  Ben looked at his wife. Her hair was soft and snowflake dusted, and her eyes met his with the innocence of love.

  She did not deserve this.

  She did not deserve any of this.

  His stomach curled, if stomachs could, as if the edges could fold up and roll into a pinwheel. A jelly roll. A slab of raw and boneless fish twirled quickly into sushi.

  Jill looked to the woman, then back at her husband, confusion etched across her eyes. “Ben?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  The corners of his mouth went dry. His tongue felt swollen. “Please, Jill, do as I ask.”

  She folded her arms and remained there, standing still. “Not until you tell me why.”

  The cords in his neck tensed. “Jill …” he began, then lost his voice as the woman left the front steps and headed toward them. “Go inside,” he said quickly. “Now.”

  Jill looked at the woman, then back to Ben.

  “It’s Fern Ashenbach,” he said. “It’s Mindy’s mother.”

  Jill should have known this was far from over, that that had been only an illusion, brought to life by Ben’s hopes. She should have known because Herb Bartlett had been quite clear, and because Hugh Talbot had said as much.

  But as she sat in the front room, peering out the lace draperies at her husband standing in the snow, talking with that woman, Mindy’s mother, Jill suddenly wondered if it would ever truly be over. Even if Ben were vindicated, would the tension still be there between them, the underlying question mark as to what had really happened?

  She had tried to make the question mark go away.

  She had tried to take control by returning to her old life in order to find him a good attorney.

  She had tried to keep herself so busy that she would not be bothered by it.

  And yet the question mark persisted. Because she would never know the truth, because she had not been there, because, as Herb Bartlett so succinctly said, it was her word against his.

  She blinked and strained to see what was going on in the dim light of the lantern.

  The woman’s hands were on her hips, her head tipped back in laughter that shot its way straight to Jill’s wounded heart.

  Ben didn’t do it, she repeated to herself. I know my husband, and I know he didn’t do it.

  But if that were true, why did the question mark quickly surface whenever new doubt was created?

  And why was Mindy’s mother laughing?

  She wished it were daytime and summertime and the windows were wide open. Instead, she tried to make sense out of the mouthing of their words, knowing that whatever they were discussing could change her life forever.

  Her husband put his hands into his pockets, lowered his head, and scuffed his boots against the snow. If he was responding to her mouthing words, Jill could not decipher.

  He lifted his head again and glanced toward the house.

  And then Ben turned; his back went to the window. Perhaps he had seen her there.

  She closed her eyes. Would she lose Ben because she was sitting in the window and he thought she should have been more trusting?

  “Mom?” The voice behind her startled Jill. “What are you doing?”

  She cleared her throat and quickly stood. Amy. God, why did she have to come now? “I didn’t see you come in.”

  Her daughter entered the room, carrying the empty tray from the chicken she’d cooked for the party. She moved to the window and followed her mother’s gaze.

  “I drove in around back,” she remarked. “Who’s that?”

  Jill stepped away. “No one,” she said. “It’s Fern Ashenbach.” She went over to the rolltop desk, snapped on the lamp, and straightened the inkwell and the letter opener with the ivory scrimshaw handle that had belonged to her great-grandfather. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the party?”

  “Rita was worried about the two of you. She thinks Ben might be sick.” She set down the tray and kept her gaze fixed out the window.

  “He’s not sick,” Jill said. “And stop staring. The woman is one of Ben’s neighbors at the museum.”

  “Ashenbach? Didn’t her husband just die?”

  Jill opened the desktop and pulled a few bills from a pigeonhole compartment. She sorted through them as if she intended to sit right down and pay them, as if the drama being played out on her front steps did not presently exist. “It wasn’t her husband who died,” she said, her eyes on the envelopes, “it was her father-in-law.”

  Amy nodded and at last moved from the window and picked up the tray
again. “Well, she dresses like a Forty-second Street whore.”

  Jill turned to her daughter. “Where on earth did you hear that expression?”

  Just then an engine started. Jill spun back to the window and watched a pickup truck pull away, and saw Ben …

  He opened the front door and came into the foyer. If “ashen” truly was a color, he’d become it. Maybe Rita had been right. Maybe he was sick, and he was going to die right there in the doorway, not unlike the way her father had dropped dead one sunny summer morning without warning, without reason.

  Like all of life, she thought.

  “Hey, Ben,” Amy said, “that’s some woman. A friend of yours?” She laughed a playful, teasing laugh.

  Ben did not laugh back. “No one who matters,” he replied, and his gaze told Jill that Fern Ashenbach’s visit did matter quite a lot.

  “I’m glad you’re both here,” Amy continued. “I was thinking tonight at the party that I really love it on the island. I love all the people here. If Charlie decides to stay in Florida and wants to sell the tavern, I really want to buy it. Wouldn’t it be fun to have it come back into the family, Mom? I mean, college is not for everyone.”

  “Charlie’s not gone for good yet,” Ben commented, his voice still flat. He removed his cap and did not seem to notice that snow fell to the floor.

  “Well, Rita thinks—”

  “We’ll talk about it later, okay?” Jill asked, her eyes still on her husband, doubt emblazoned on her face.

  Amy looked from Jill to Ben, then back again. “Maybe I should come back another time,” she said.

  “Yes, honey,” Jill replied, “that’s a good idea.”

  “Some nights I lie awake and think that even after April has come and gone, this nightmare will never end,” Jill said after Amy had gone and Ben had settled in the kitchen with a large mug of steaming coffee that he’d made in order to kill time so he could figure out how to tell his wife the things he had to say.

  He wished he could simply say “I love you” and know that that would be enough.

  “But the nightmare is far from over,” his wife continued, “isn’t it?”

  If Ben still took sugar in his coffee he’d use this time to stir it slowly. He looked down onto the rich, dark liquid and was reminded of the story he’d heard of the scamming fortune teller who claimed to have ESP. A woman in a purple velvet turban had her client write his deepest secret on a small square of napkin. The fortune teller then took the napkin, passing it across the top of her cup of coffee, where her client didn’t realize she could see his words clearly reflected in the liquid. She then revealed his deepest secret and—presto!—she’d found a new believer at fifty bucks a pop.