by Lisa Jackson
She glared at him. “I would be too, considering you can’t even stay faithful during our engagement vacation.” She shook her head in disgust. “I was so wrong about you. I thought, ‘Okay, he’s a little on the unexciting side, but he’s not one of those guys you’ll have to keep tabs on all the time.’ But it turns out, behind that unassuming accountant exterior, you’re just another undependable, cheating dog.” She yanked the ring off her finger. “Well, all right. If that’s the case, and you want your stupid ring back . . .”
To his horror, she hauled back and then hurled the ring over the side of the wall. The pitch would have done Sandy Koufax proud. The precious metal glinted as it arced toward the sun, then dropped out of sight.
“Go fetch!”
CHAPTER 8
There were so many things to look at here. When she’d read about Machu Picchu in the guidebooks, she’d envisioned something compact. Now, she feared two visits wouldn’t be enough to explore everything. She kept stopping to film, panning with her camera across the spectacular panoramas in all directions. And then she’d start down a new path and be distracted by a llama. They were all over and stood sentry around the site like the slightly bored security guards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She snapped about a hundred pictures of them.
She also couldn’t believe how many stairs there were. The Incas must have had glutes of steel. She puffed her way up a particularly long rise that the map she’d picked up at the entrance promised would lead her to another temple. She stopped to gather her breath and frowned down at the map. Maybe this staircase was leading to the ceremonial baths.
Damn. Sam was right. She really sucked at directions.
Do not think about Sam.
Something hit her hair, causing her to jump. At first she thought it might be a particularly hardy bug performing a kamikaze dive onto her scalp. She shook her head, and in the next moment perceived a light tinkling metal hitting stone. What the hell?
She peered in the direction the sound had come from, then bent over, studying the ground. Something silvery winked at her.
She crouched farther to pick it up, and then froze. Oh no.
It couldn’t be.
She frowned at the ring for a moment and gave herself a sharp pinch to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. But no. There it was, her old nemesis, Gina’s ring.
She picked it up gingerly, careful not to put it on her finger this time. Any finger. She wished she had tongs or tweezers so she wouldn’t even have to touch it.
Why had it been flying through the air? She glanced up, but she couldn’t see over the wall above her head.
And why her? She just couldn’t seem to shake free of this ring. She couldn’t help wondering if Dorothy Gale had felt this way when she realized she was stuck wearing the ruby slippers the Wicked Witch would kill her for. Pretty, yes, but she hadn’t asked for the damn things. Meredith certainly didn’t want the ring.
She peered up again and caught sight of Sam’s head. He was looking over the edge of the wall. She waved and started climbing. Might as well get this over with. Maybe Gina could be convinced to Scotch tape the ring to tighten it up until she could get home and get it fitted better.
When Meredith had puffed to the top of the stairs, she found Sam standing alone. Several expressions marched across his face—from a glad smile, to wariness, to a shuttered look she couldn’t read at all.
“Where’s Gina?” she asked.
He jabbed his thumb in the opposite direction. “She went thataway.”
Meredith shifted uneasily. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, holding out the ring. “I found it again. Please tell Gina it wasn’t on purpose.”
He didn’t seem inclined to take the ring back at first. Then, almost glowering at it, he plucked it out of her hand and stuffed it into his pocket.
Something was seriously wrong. “I don’t know how it got from up here to bouncing off my skull, but—”
“Gina threw it,” he said, interrupting. “She was angry because I’d called off the engagement.”
Her heart lurched uneasily in her chest. She wanted to be glad for him, but he was clearly still in turmoil. Or shock. “Please tell me this had nothing to do with me and that stupid ring.”
“It had nothing to do with you and the ring. But it had everything to do with how I feel about you.”
She shook her head. “Oh, Sam.” She wasn’t sure whether to laugh, cry, or throw herself into his arms. Nothing seemed quite right. “What a mess.”
“No kidding,” he said. “I’ve got four more vacation days to go with the girlfriend I just broke up with. Including a fourteen-hour plane trip home.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “This will give Fran something to blog about.”
He hesitated a moment, then stepped toward her. She pivoted slightly, taking in the view of lush greenery and rediscovered hidden city, and trying to process the avalanche of feelings going on inside her.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She sucked in a deep breath. Maybe it was the altitude that made her light-headed, or the air itself, which smelled pure and earthy at the same time. It was a million times cleaner than what her lungs usually got. “The climb was definitely worth it.”
“I meant, what do you think about my breaking off with Gina?”
Elation? Maybe that was the altitude too. “I’m not sure. I didn’t want to come between you two.”
“It wasn’t your doing. It was mine. I’ve been an idiot. I forgot what love was supposed to be.”
She glanced up at him, unsure of what to say.
He took her hand. “Maybe I shouldn’t bring this up just now,” he said. “But just suppose that when you got back to New York an old boyfriend called you up on a Friday night. What would you say?”
Her heart skipped, but she managed to maintain some poise. He looked so worried. “I probably wouldn’t answer my phone. I’m usually at the theater on Friday nights.”
He shifted in frustration. “Saturday afternoon, then. What if this old boyfriend were to ask you out for coffee, to talk about old times.”
She thought about that. “I think I’d rather talk about current times. Or maybe the future.”
The anxiety pinching his brow lifted. “Then you’d say yes?”
She looked into his eyes, and resistance melted. “Yes. Definitely.”
He squeezed her hand. The happiness inside her seemed to expand to fit the landscape.
“When we get back to New York,” she said, for clarification, “this old boyfriend won’t wait seven more years to call, will he?”
He smiled. “More like seven minutes after he gets back to his apartment from the airport.”
That sounded perfect. Except for one thing. “I like the idea of taking it slow. But maybe we need a little something to tide us over?”
A spark leapt in his eyes. “Good idea.” He pulled her into his arms, and when their lips met, she realized that she’d never looked forward to the future more.
She couldn’t wait to tell Janie.
SUMMER MEMORIES
HOLLY CHAMBERLIN
As always, for Stephen.
And this time, also for Ruth.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to John Scognamiglio for his patience, care, and encouragement. And thanks and gratitude to Stephen for everything, always.
CHAPTER 1
“Well, Ellen Tudor. Welcome to your new temporary home.”
Ellen stood in the middle of the living room of the house she had just rented at a ridiculously expensive price for the three months of summer. She didn’t mind the ridiculously high price, because she had come home. She would have paid more than she could have afforded to be back in Ogunquit that summer.
The house stood at the end of the picturesque and private Wisteria Lane. It was a simple, two-story wooden structure set on an acre of land. The owners had kept the grounds well tended. The grass was freshly mowed, the trees trimmed, and t
here was a very pretty garden of wildflowers out back. Ellen had been offered the choice of tending the land herself (the owners would pay for her time and supplies), or having a professional gardening service come by on a regular basis.
Ellen chose the gardening service. She loved flowers, but she wasn’t much good at keeping even the hardiest of green plants alive. She loved to buy good silk imitations of her favorites—blue-tinted hydrangeas, fat pink peonies, cream-colored roses—and when the real things were in season, she bought those lavishly. At the moment, most of the surfaces in the living room were decorated with vases of blooms. A squat, square container showed off the vibrant and colorful energy of three large sunflowers; a tall, narrow glass vase displayed several elegant stalks of bells of Ireland; and a classic, V-shaped vase allowed a dozen Fire and Ice roses to claim pride of place.
Yes, the house on Wisteria Lane would suit Ellen perfectly. A modest-sized kitchen, a generously sized living room, and a room that had once been a parlor or sitting room were to be found on the first floor. On the second floor, reached by a center stairway, there was the master bedroom, a smaller bedroom for guests, and the house’s one bathroom. It had been modernized enough to please the finicky bather, but retained a good deal of old charm. The white porcelain tub was a genuine claw-footed one; there was molding halfway up all four walls; and the light fixtures looked to be expensive and very good replicas of those from the early twentieth century.
The house came furnished, so Ellen had brought only the basics with her—clothing, books, computer, and the like. Her rental apartment, back in Boston, was standing empty for the summer. Her mail was being forwarded to Ogunquit. Only her parents and Caroline Charron, her closest friend, knew where she was spending June, July, and August.
In short, she would be left virtually alone. It was how she wanted it to be, after what had happened with Peter.
Ellen decided that she was hungry. As she passed through the living room on her way to the kitchen, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Well, the topmost bit of her reflection. Ellen, who had turned thirty-one the previous February, stood at only five feet two inches tall. Her hair was very blond, and she wore it short in the pixie-like style Michelle Williams had made popular again. Her eyes were large and brown; she thought they were probably her best feature. When she was younger people had said that her eyes made her look like a Disney character, all innocent and loveable. Well, Ellen wasn’t entirely sure about the loveable part! She had her bad and sad moods like everyone else, although they never lasted very long.
Why Ogunquit, Caroline had asked when Ellen had announced her plans to “escape” for a few months. Why not some other pretty coastal town? The answer was easy. Ellen’s parents had owned a vacation home in Ogunquit. She had spent every summer there from the age of eight, after that one summer at sleepaway camp. (Her memories of Camp Norridgewock were mostly vague; the only bit that stuck out vividly was the memory of that fiendish boy named Bobby who had called her that awful name. It was a name that had haunted her for months, if not years, afterward.)
Anyway, five years earlier the Tudors had sold the beloved house in Ogunquit and moved to Arizona for the famously dry heat. They came to visit Ellen for a week each spring, and they all kept in touch as most long-distance families did these days—they Skyped and e-mailed and texted, and they even used the good, old-fashioned telephone.
So, when Ellen had decided that she needed time to heal after Peter’s betrayal, Ogunquit, the “beautiful place by the sea,” had seemed the logical choice of destination. It was in Ogunquit that she had built sandcastles and collected shells on Maine Beach, and it was there she had lost her virginity at the age of sixteen to a cute and very sweet seventeen-year-old guy named Etienne, visiting from France. It was there that she had her first paying job waiting tables at a fish and chips joint in Perkins Cove, and it was there she had spent lazy summer evenings on the front porch, swinging and sipping her mother’s lemonade.
But why go back there now, her mother had asked. Why retreat from the people who love you, like Caroline and your other friends in Boston? What possible good could come of being all by yourself, surrounded by virtual strangers?
Because, Ellen had answered, though silently, virtual strangers will have no idea of what a fool I made of myself with Peter Hall.
Caroline had warned her against Peter from the start. She had declared him untrustworthy on no evidence that Ellen could see, and after a while this difference of opinion had caused tension between the two friends. Peter was just so—just so perfect!—and after all, Caroline wasn’t exactly known for her success with men. She hadn’t had a relationship in three years! Ellen knew that Caroline wasn’t jealous of her relationship with Peter; Caroline wasn’t the jealous type. Still, Ellen just couldn’t understand what was causing Caroline’s antipathy.
Eventually, Caroline had begun to keep her opinions about Peter to herself, and the women’s friendship had gotten back on track. When Peter had proposed to Ellen with masses of her favorite flowers and a four-carat diamond ring, Caroline had warmly and sincerely congratulated her friend.
Unlike Caroline, Ellen’s parents had thought Peter was as perfect as Ellen had thought him to be. When Peter had proposed with such drama and romance, both JoAnne and Louis had been dizzy with joy. It was amazing, Ellen thought now, how much influence a dozen bouquets and a sparkly ring could have over even the most levelheaded and practical of people.
And then Peter had cheated. Well, it turned out that he had been cheating for some time before he got sloppy and left evidence behind for Ellen to find. And she had also found evidence that a good deal of the money she had contributed to their household fund had disappeared without a paper or electronic trail. In short, Peter Hall had proved to be a liar, a cheat, and a swindler.
Caroline had been one hundred percent correct about Peter. And though she didn’t gloat or say, “I told you so,” Ellen felt embarrassed by her own poor judgment. She was uncomfortable facing the friend who had had the courage and the honesty to warn her of a danger she had not been able to see.
But this was nothing new. Since childhood, it had been Ellen’s habit to retreat when she was upset, to seek emotional isolation until her wounds had healed. And then, she would emerge from her seclusion, more cautious than before, but whole. And she always emerged.
In the beginning of their relationship, Peter had found her habit of emotional withdrawal annoying; Ellen guessed that by the end of their relationship he had come to find it very convenient for the pursuit of his own illicit adventures.
Now, this summer, Ellen had chosen not only emotional but physical retreat, as well. The best thing for her to do was to go away for a time.
Eventually, even JoAnne Tudor had accepted her daughter’s decision. She had witnessed just how badly Ellen had been hurt by Peter Hall. It was Mrs. Tudor who had urged Ellen to sell the ring Peter had given her; it more than made up for the money he had filched. And it was Mrs. Tudor who had urged Ellen to confront Peter and demand an apology.
That confrontation had taken every ounce of courage Ellen possessed. Not that it had changed anything. Peter had refused to apologize for destroying her life, or for destroying the life they had been building together.
Now, two months after the breakup, Ellen wasn’t sure she had anything left in her to fuel another big stand. But if she were very lucky and very, very cautious, she would never be fooled again....
Peace and quiet. That was what she was hoping to find in Ogunquit. Time alone to recoup and to recharge.
“Well, as long as you’re going back to Ogunquit,” Mrs. Tudor had said, “would you do me a favor and look up my old friend Cora Compton?” And Ellen would. She remembered Cora as more than slightly eccentric. Interestingly, she had been called “Old” Mrs. Compton for as long as the Tudors had known her; now, Ellen thought, she must be approaching eighty and almost deserving of her moniker. As for Mr. Compton, well, no one seemed to kn
ow anything about him. It didn’t seem to matter now.
What did matter was food. Ellen had brought in groceries earlier that day, and now selected a package of ground turkey from the freezer. A turkey burger and a big salad were just what she wanted. She set about preparing her dinner, aware that after only a few days back in Ogunquit she already felt calmer and more at ease. It boded well for a restful and restorative summer.
CHAPTER 2
So much for restful and restorative.
The very next morning, at seven o’clock sharp, Cora Compton came roaring through Ellen’s front door like a blast of noisy (albeit fresh) air.
Ellen, who had been on her way to the kitchen to start the coffee, jumped as the doorbell sounded not once, but three times in rapid succession. “Who can that be?” she mumbled. She opened the door to find her mother’s old friend beaming down on her.
“I heard you had come back to town, and I just had to rush right over to welcome you. Welcome!”
That last word was delivered in a bellow that caused Ellen to flinch.
“Uh,” she said in return. “Hello.”
“Now,” Mrs. Compton continued, pushing her way past Ellen and into the front hall, “I know that it’s early, but I figured a businesswoman like you—oh, yes, dear, I know that you are in business!—would be up and about long before now.”
Ellen managed a weak smile. “Yes,” she said, adjusting the belt on her bathrobe.
In contrast to Ellen’s own undressed state, Cora Compton was decked out in a two-piece skirt suit in a peculiar though not unbecoming shade of green. Perched atop her head was a wide-brimmed, straw sun hat trimmed in pink and yellow silk flowers. For as long as Ellen had known her, Old Mrs. Compton’s hair had been snow-white. It was magnificent hair, thick and soft, and she wore it in a variety of fashions reminiscent of Edith Wharton and the like. She was a tall, broad woman, solidly built and still as straight and as strong as a person half her age. Her eyes were a startling blue, very round, surrounded by dark lashes, and arched over by thick, dark brows. Ellen’s father referred to Cora Compton as a “handsome” woman, and Ellen thought that adjective appropriate.