The Passions of Chelsea Kane

by Barbara Delinsky

  Hoping to lessen that wariness by virtue of her own acceptance, Donna took Chelsea’s arm again and led her from one to the next. There were no handshakes, just an exchange of names and nods. Chelsea’s nods were accompanied by smiles; the others were sober. None was more sober than the very last. She was white-haired, the oldest in the group, the most petite, and, though she determinedly attended every class, the most fragile-looking.

  Taking the utmost care to properly articulate her words and modulate her tone of voice, Donna said aloud, “This is my mother, Margaret Plum. Mother, this is Chelsea Kane.”

  Chelsea was visibly startled. She gathered herself quickly, though, and did offer her hand then. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Plum. I had no idea you’d be here.”

  “Nor I you,” Margaret said. Proper lady that she was, she put her hand in Chelsea’s, though even Donna could see how tentatively. Her hand seemed feeble. In keeping with that, her face was ashen.

  “Are you all right?” Donna signed, but Margaret’s eyes were on Chelsea.

  “Do you do this often?” Chelsea asked.

  “Yes,” Margaret answered.

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “I like being in church.” Her hand shook as she lowered it.

  Worried, Donna touched her arm and signed again, “Are you all right?” She knew that Margaret wasn’t pleased with the partnership agreement and wished she had been able to prepare her for Chelsea’s appearance. But Donna hadn’t known Chelsea was coming until she had appeared at the door.

  “I’m tired,” Margaret said, her eyes still on Chelsea. “I think I’d like some breakfast.”

  “Should I walk you home?” Donna signed, but Margaret turned around midway through the question and started off.

  Chelsea looked after her. “Is she ill?”

  Donna shrugged, then repeated the gesture when Chelsea turned to her. But Chelsea seemed to have forgotten about Margaret.

  “You speak well,” she said. When Donna shook her head, she insisted, “You do. I hadn’t realized you could. It must have been difficult to learn.”

  Donna shook her head, then cupped her ear and nodded.

  “You could hear once? What happened?”

  She waved a hand to indicate nothing of consequence, certainly nothing she wanted to discuss, and quickly looked at her watch. It was seven-fifteen. Matthew would be furious if she wasn’t in the kitchen with breakfast cooking by seven-thirty. She gave Chelsea an apologetic look.

  “Go on,” Chelsea said. “Will you be in the store later?”

  Donna nodded.

  “Can I stop by?”

  Donna nodded more enthusiastically, gave Chelsea’s arm a squeeze, and, with a wave, headed for the door.

  LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, SHE PUT A LARGE MUG OF strong black coffee before her husband and stood back by the kitchen counter to watch and wait. He hadn’t come home until after midnight, and then his tread on the stairs had been heavier than usual. One look at his eyes this morning explained that. He was hungover.

  There was a faint tremor in his hand when he raised the mug. He took a drink, lowered the mug, set his elbow on the table, and rested his forehead on the heel of his hand. He sat that way for a full five minutes, during which time Donna didn’t move. She watched his face, wanting to see his lips when and if he spoke. If she wasn’t alert and missed something he said, he would be angry. His anger wasn’t a pleasant thing.

  His hand fell away from his head. He took another drink of coffee, then looked at her. “This tastes like mud.”

  “It’s just strong,” she said.

  He winced. “Don’t yell.”

  She knotted her hands. Volume was always a problem, always a problem, particularly with Matthew. Most people understood that since she was deaf, she couldn’t hear her own voice. But not Matthew. He wanted her to speak as though she had no problem at all.

  Had he been a compassionate sort, he might have tried reading lips or understanding sign. He had actually done both when they’d been courting, but with the placement of a ring on her finger, that had stopped. She was left with little choice but to point and gesture, or talk. None of those was ideal, but when it came to stone deafness, nothing was ideal.

  “Where’s the paper?” he asked, looking grim. The newspaper was on the table not far from where he sat. She slid it closer. He unfolded it, stared at the front page, pushed it away. “You going to the store?”

  “Soon,” she answered, taking extra care with her voice. “Monti’s there now.” Monti was Matthew’s older brother. With Emery serving as postmaster, the everyday running of the store fell to his two sons.

  Matthew gave her an angry look. “I don’t want Monti opening the store. How many times do I have to tell you that? Monti doesn’t know what in the hell he’s doing. I want you over there right now.”

  She had taken a quick shower and thrown on a robe. It would be another ten minutes before she could be ready to leave the house. Still, she nodded and untied her apron. She had barely slipped it over her head when Matthew’s hand hit her hip. Her eyes flew to his mouth.

  “I want a couple of fried eggs. Make them runny, not hard like last time. And some biscuits. And juice.”

  Putting the apron back on, she turned to the refrigerator, but she had no sooner taken out the eggs and put the skillet on to heat than Matthew hit her again.

  “The video salesman is coming today. Double the order on the new releases. People want to watch those movies, and we don’t have enough of them.”

  She nodded.

  “And get rid of those wooden mushrooms in the front window. They look awful.” He pulled the paper close again.

  Donna rather liked the wooden mushrooms. They were part of a larger display of fruits and vegetables, all made of wood and sold as kitchen accents. Matthew’s mother had bought them from a crafts collaborative several towns over, and though Lucy was notorious for her staidness, Donna had agreed with her on this choice. Plenty of other people did, too, if healthy sales meant anything. But Donna had no intention of pointing that out to Matthew. It would be sure to cause a fight. Far better, she knew, to leave the wooden mushrooms on display and then, if he complained again, defer to Lucy.

  She turned and cracked three eggs into the skillet, filled a large glass with cranberry juice, and put two biscuits into the toaster oven. Taking silverware and a napkin from the drawer, she set a place at the table.

  Matthew knocked her arm. His mouth was angry. “You changed detergents again, didn’t you.”

  She had switched to a brand with a fabric softener to make the ironing easier.

  He flicked his fingers against his collar. “This shirt smells like flowers. How can I go to work smelling like flowers? People will think I’m a pansy.”

  “No,” she mouthed, crinkling her nose and shaking her head. “No smell.”

  “I can smell it, I tell you. It’s even worse than the stuff you’ve been wearing lately. What is that stuff?”

  It was toilet water, part of a collection that the store had just begun to stock. The scent was floral, with a touch of the exotic. Donna remembered what Chelsea had said about advertising scrunchies by wearing them. That was what she had intended with the toilet water, and it worked. She had sold three bottles in the past week to women who liked the scent on her. She liked the scent, too. It took her places, conjured up images of fine restaurants, rooftop apartments in the city, limousines. It reminded her of Chelsea.

  “It sells,” she said.

  He made a face. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn if it sells. Don’t wear it.”

  “Customers like it.”

  “It makes you smell like something you’re not.”

  It made her smell like something she wanted to be. She had a right to dream. “But I like it!”

  “Don’t yell!” he bellowed, and turned away in disgust.

  Heart pounding, Donna turned back to the stove. She put his eggs and biscuits on a plate and put the plate and the
juice on the table before him. Then she retreated to the sink to wash the skillet. When she felt a hand on her arm, she jumped.

  It was Joshie, looking troubled. No doubt he had heard his father’s bellow. Her heart ached.

  “Is everything okay?” he signed.

  “Everything’s fine,” she signed back, and smiled.

  “Dad’s in a bad mood again?”

  “He didn’t sleep well.”

  “Where was he last night?”

  “Playing cards with Junior and Cal,” which was as good a guess as any. She had long ago learned not to ask Matthew where he was going or where he had been. He liked his freedom, he had informed her soon after they married, and given that he’d been a bachelor for so long, she tried to understand. Occasionally that had been hard, such as when she’d gone into labor with Joshie and Matthew was nowhere to be found. Occasionally it was downright embarrassing, such as when friends came looking for him at the store and she had to concoct little lies to cover both for him and for her own ignorance.

  He did play cards with Junior and Cal. Junior Jamieson was George’s son and had been Matthew’s best friend for years. Calvin Ball was another old friend, the store’s accountant, brother to Donna’s brother-in-law. They rarely played until midnight, though, particularly during the week. Moreover, Donna had spotted Junior and Cal without Matthew often enough at night to know that there were other things Matthew did. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what they were.

  “I like that perfume,” Joshie signed now. “I don’t know why Dad’s so upset. You smell good.”

  Donna put her arms around Joshie and drew him to her in a quick hug. She didn’t know why she’d been graced with such a precious son, but not a single day passed when she didn’t say a prayer of thanks that it was so. Even now, with the crown of his head reaching her cheekbone, she was acutely aware that the days of hugs were numbered. He was twelve and nearing puberty. Soon he would be wanting freedom, too. She only wished Matthew set a better example. The thought of Joshie staying out until all hours doing God only knew what gave her a chill.

  She held him back and signed, “Your dad is sensitive to things like smells. Maybe he’ll get used to this one.”

  “It’s different. It’s nice to be different sometimes. I wish Dad would be.”

  Donna shot a look at her husband. He was wearing a pair of slacks and the cotton shirt she had pressed the night before. That was his uniform. He rarely wore anything different. She hadn’t seen him in a suit in years, which was a shame. Even with the ten pounds that had settled around his middle since their marriage, he remained a handsome man. His hair was smooth and white blond, his features patrician. When he wanted to charm, he could do it with a smile.

  Joshie was Farr blond, but his features were Plum rough, and he wore glasses. Donna loved his looks, glasses and all, and though she doubted he would ever be handsome in the classic way Matthew was, that didn’t matter. What he lacked in looks, he made up for in sweetness.

  “How was aerobics?” he signed.

  “Fine. Guess who was there?” When he shrugged, she finger-spelled, “Chelsea Kane.”

  His eyes grew round. “Was she driving the Jag?”

  “She came over from the inn. I didn’t see any car.”

  “It’s real pretty. So’s she. The guys at school all think so, and half of them haven’t even seen her, but Tom and Ethan have, and they’ve been talking. They say it’s about time we got someone like her up here. Their moms say she’s snotty.”

  Donna was about to say that Chelsea Kane wasn’t snotty at all when Joshie’s eyes darted to his father, who looked enraged. She caught Matthew’s words midsentence. “. . . doing that to me. If you have something to say, speak. You talk with your hands so I can’t follow. Well, I won’t have it. I won’t be excluded from conversation in my own home. What do you think this is, a private party for two?”

  “Please, Matthew,” Donna said quickly, “Joshie signs to help me. We weren’t saying anything we didn’t want you to hear.”

  “He’s not deaf. He can speak perfectly well.” To Joshie he said, “You speak when you have something to say. You understand that, boy?”

  Joshie nodded.

  Donna clasped the back of the boy’s head. “Go on, now. They’ll be waiting for you.” She watched him run off.

  Matthew tore off a hunk of biscuit, covered it with egg yolk, and pushed it into his mouth. He was still chewing when he tore off another hunk. “What in the hell is he doing working for the town when he could be working for us?”

  “It’s the playground.” The town ran programs every summer that amounted to free day camps for the children. “Joshie’s a counselor. He’s good with the little ones.”

  “He could be good with a broom, too, if he practiced once in a while.” He mopped up yolk. “We could use the help. He could be loading up orders, taking out trash, and dusting shelves. Times are tight. We have to work harder.” He stuffed the doused biscuit into one side of his mouth and talked out of the other. “We can’t afford to bore people with wooden mushrooms or make them sick with perfume.”

  Donna felt a sudden intense annoyance. That Matthew should have the gall to criticize her use of toilet water, while he sat there stuffing food into his mouth like an oaf, amazed her.

  He pushed his plate away and finished his coffee. Then he stood and faced her. His eyes were bloodshot but direct. “Chelsea Kane checked into the inn last night. They say she’ll be here a while. You know what that means?”

  It meant, first off, that Matthew had been somewhere near the inn last night. Late. It also meant that he had communicated with someone who had seen the books there, probably Sukie Blake, who clerked at the desk after hours. That made Donna nervous. Sukie Blake wouldn’t fool around with Matthew—she was engaged to Joey Dodd—but she had friends who would.

  “It means,” Matthew went on, “that she’ll be back and forth here, just like she told Ollie. She’ll come to us for her things, if she knows that we have what she needs. We’ve got to let her know that. Her business is important. She’s half of your father’s company now. We have to stay on her good side. We have to impress her, and that means no cheap perfume. Do you understand what I’m saying, Donna?”

  The toilet water in question was far from cheap, which Matthew would have known if he bothered to study the books. But Donna wasn’t about to tell him that—or to tell him that Monti knew, because he did study the books, or to tell him that women liked fine perfume. Matthew didn’t take well to criticism, and Donna wasn’t inviting his wrath. If she were the only one involved, she might have. But there was Joshie to consider. Matthew’s ill will was hell on him. She would do most anything to avoid it.

  Ten

  Chelsea stood in the attic, pushed the curls off her damp forehead, and looked around with satisfaction. The space was beginning to shape up. The first time she had seen it, it had been dark and littered with papers, old books, and scraps of material. It had reminded her of her parents’ attic in Baltimore, which even now awaited her attention. She figured she would tackle it at some point during the summer, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. The memories were happy ones; having to box them up was sad.

  She thought about that while Oliver’s men cleaned the attic, and she insisted that things be crated and put in the basement rather than thrown out. History wasn’t something to be taken lightly. She was sure that someone would find meaning in the contents of those boxes one day.

  Cleared of the rubble, the attic had grown larger, and that was before the aged rafters were reinforced, insulated, covered with Sheetrock and plastered.

  Four skylights had been installed, opening the attic to the sun. Likewise, full-size windows replaced miniatures beneath the gables.

  Unfortunately light was one thing, air circulation another. Though those windows were wide open, the air barely moved.

  At the sound of footsteps on the spiral staircase, she looked back. Judd’s dark head emerged through the n
ewly created stairwell, followed by the rest of him, and for a minute she could only stare. She didn’t know what it was about him—Lord knew she had known men more classically handsome and cultured—but Judd Streeter was something else. All she had to do was to catch sight of him, and regardless of how distant he was, her pulse sped. It was speeding now. Worse, she felt tongue-tied.

  So she just smiled, then tore her eyes from his and looked around the room again.

  “Everything okay?” he asked in a voice that was as naturally deep as he was naturally male.

  She nodded. “Lookin’ good.” She studied the skylights. They still had the manufacturer’s label on them. “Amazing the difference two weeks can make.” She flattened her damp palms on her T-shirt, which was hand-painted, long and stylish over capri-length leggings. “Add a little paint, carpeting, and some furniture, and I’ll be able to work.”

  She dared a look at him then.

  He was standing with his hands on his hips—not skinny hips, but narrow in relation to his shoulders—assessing the newly plastered ceiling and walls. His expression was serious, his profile as strong as the rest of him.

  “It’s hot as hell up here,” he said. “You need a ceiling fan.”

  She could see that he was warm. There was a sheen of sweat on his face, his neck and throat, and his forearms. The rest of him was covered by a sweat-splotched workshirt and jeans. It was just another day at the quarry.

  Say something, she told herself. Say something brilliant. But she couldn’t think of a single brilliant word. In desperation, she turned to the weather. “I thought New Hampshire would be cooler than Baltimore. Is this global warming?”

  He met her gaze. “It’s summer.”

  She swallowed. “Can your men work in the heat?”

  His expression turned dry in reminder of the deal she’d made with Oliver. He nodded slowly.

  “That’s good,” she said. Needing a breather from the intensity of his eyes, she went to the window and, tucking her hands under her arms, looked down on the slate roof and ivy-colored walls of the small house that was the Norwich Notch Post Office. Beyond that was the widow’s walk atop the historical society, beyond that a stand of lush-leaved oaks. The town was lovely. She just wished it were a few degrees cooler.