“Not as surprised as I was.” Willy gazed out the window, although Vicky was sure she wasn’t seeing the swing or the pond or even how much danger her topiary duck was in, because none of that had existed for her in 1962.
“George knew how I felt about Albert. Everybody did. Albert was the most exciting, intriguing young man I had ever met. Granted, my experience was limited, but even at that age I knew he was someone special. He had such ideas, such plans. He taught me how to dream, how to think for myself, and he could make me laugh the way no one else could. And in spite of my father’s threats and Albert’s own warnings, I fell in love. Never regretted it for a moment until I realized he was serious. He wasn’t going to love me, and he wasn’t going to stay. He kissed me, just once, the day we found that key, and I refused to believe that anyone could kiss that way and not mean it.
“After he left, I went out to Jackson s Point every day and watched the road, positive he was going to be there one day. Walking into town, swinging his suitcase, the way he had that first time. The only difference was, he’d be coming for me.”
But he never did, Vicky thought, watching George and Reid wander over to the topiary rabbit, walk all around it. This time Reid pointed out a spot, measured a piece between his thumb and forefinger. Vicky had to smile when George shook his head and delicately took back his clippers.
Willy sighed. “After the first month, George took to waiting with me. He’d come out there every day and sit on the rock, and we’d talk about all kinds of things. When I told him I wanted to be a doctor, he encouraged me, only quietly, not the way Albert had. He’d started his own business by then, a hardware store in Fort Bragg, but he still lived in Seaport. He helped me study, make the grades I’d need to get in to medical school. Eventually I went, but I told him to watch for Albert until I got back.” She ran a hand over the lace curtain at her side. “I was so stubborn. Wouldn’t listen when he told me Albert wasn’t coming back. By the time I finished school and had my license, Seaport was all but dead. George met me at Jackson’s Point one last time. He asked me to marry him. Said he wouldn’t ask again. He said it was time to put Albert behind me and move on, go forward.”
“Good advice,” Vicky said, watching George and Reid squat down by the rabbit’s tail while George made one precise cut.
“That’s what I thought,” Willy said. “I looked along the road, told myself that if Albert hadn’t come in all that time he wasn’t likely to now.”
“And you said yes.”
She smiled out the window, clearly seeing George as he was now, the man trimming her bushes, maintaining topiaries for her grandchildren. “I married him that same summer. Traded flies-in-the-ice-cubes for topiary animals.”
Vicky laughed. “I’d say you made a much better deal. But I’m curious. Why didn’t you tell him you still had the shell?”
“Because then he would have known that some small part of me hadn’t been listening. That somewhere inside I still believed Albert would be back.” She stepped away from the window and checked her watch. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to make that dinner reservation.”
Vicky glanced back out at the yard. Reid was on the lawnmower again, sitting in the driver’s seat while George headed for the front stairs.
Willy wandered over to the bed, looked down at Albert’s legacy. “It’s a casual place,” she said. “Albert’s favorite kind.”
“No airs, no pretensions.” Vicky turned back to the window. Reid started the engine and gunned it. He called something to George then dropped into gear and was off. Rumbling along the front of the house toward the driveway, only to change course at the last minute, unable to resist taking the mower with a cart attached through a figure eight and a three point turn. Putting that machine through its paces to be sure, but had he even once asked how it performed at cutting grass? Not likely.
“I’ll see you downstairs,” Willy said.
Vicky turned. “Willy,” she said and waited for her to turn around. “If he had come back, would you have gone?”
“In a minute,” she said, and closed the door.
FOURTEEN
The Fiddlehead Bar and Grill offered the kind of home cooking that made people want to go out to eat. Crawfish bisque, Buffalo chips, and a pecan pie that had been known to make grown men weep, if the posters by the front door were to be believed. All served up with a generous portion of country music from a jukebox and a side of pool tables, dart boards, and trivia games on wide-screen TVs. The moment the big front door swung open in front of them Vicky knew Willy had been right—this was indeed Albert’s kind of place.
They chose a booth by the window with a view of the harbor and made a pact to order fiery Mexican food in Albert’s honor. Vicky and Reid sat with Albert between them on one side of the booth, George and Willy took up positions on the other and the waitress was quick to fetch them a pitcher of margaritas.
The wait staff started into a chorus of “Happy Birthday” at the next table, and Vicky smiled. Glad to be away from the house for a while, in a place where there were no bushes shaped like ducks or magic keys in shells or men hot-rodding on lawn mowers. A place where everything made sense, like the order on a menu: appetizers first, followed by entrees and desserts. No surprises. Nothing to challenge the way she thought or make her question the things she believed.
The birthday song ended and Vicky felt herself relax further, knowing that tomorrow she’d be home again with her children, her job, and a future that was as bright as the waitress’s smile and as predictable as, “Hi, I’m Joy and I’ll be your server for this evening.”
While Joy recited a list of specials, Vicky basked in the noise and the laughter, letting it surround her and fill her head. Pushing aside the questions that had been there since Willy closed the door behind her, and would intrude even now if Vicky let them. Questions about why a woman would spend so many years waiting for a man. How she could marry another when her heart was still locked away, and whether or not George knew the truth.
She glanced over at Willy. She was leaning against George, listening to the waitress and exchanging a nod with him now and then. When the waitress launched into desserts, Willy looked across the table, meeting Vicky’s eyes for less than a heartbeat, before quickly turning away, back to the waitress. It had been this way since they met at the bottom of the stairs earlier, and Willy had said softly, “You must think the worst of me now,” before George appeared and whisked her through the door to the car.
The waitress left, giving them time with the menus. Vicky turned the pages, hoping she’d have a chance to speak to Willy alone, to let her know she was wrong. Watching Reid fill their glasses, she wondered how long it would take for her to finally get over him. How long it would be before her heart didn’t beat faster at the thought of his touch.
She glanced back at Willy, half afraid the answer was never. Some part of her would always be his, just like part of Willy was with Albert. While she couldn’t understand Willy’s choices, neither could she find it in her heart to judge or condemn her, not when she was so confused herself.
Reid sighed as he passed around the margaritas. A Bon Voyage Party is what he’d told the hostess they were having when they arrived. But even though she’d responded by having the jukebox play “Happy Trails,” and their own waitress returned with little umbrellas for their glasses, it didn’t feel much like a party.
Not with George and Willy oddly quiet, and Vicky still staring at the same page on the menu, completely unaware of what she was doing to him each time she crossed and uncrossed those long golden legs.
She unconsciously gave her skirt tug as she shifted her legs and he couldn’t help wondering where she was, what she was thinking about. And whether or not she’d change her mind if he asked her one more time to ride back with him in the mini instead of flying home alone.
She’d already told him her flight was booked. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon she’d be on a plane out of Little River, and he’d be on
the phone explaining to Kira that he’d been wrong. Wishes don’t always come true.
He glanced out the window at the boats in the harbor, the fishermen on the pier, and the impatient moon, faint but unmistakable. Hovering above them in a sky that was still blue and lit with sunshine, waiting to see what he’d do next.
Whether he’d say the four little words Vicky had been longing to hear—Let’s buy the house—and solve the question of sleeping arrangements once and for all. Or if he’d hang on and wait for her to say the four words he’d been longing to hear—I don’t want it – and risk never holding her in his arms again.
Reid turned away, telling his heart to slow, to calm. There would be time to beat his head against that particular wall again later, but right now he had to think about Albert. If he couldn’t take him to Jackson’s Point, at least he could give him a decent party.
Lacking a rubber chicken, he rose and waited until all faces at the table—and a few from the surrounding ones—turned to look at him. Then he cleared his throat and in his most solemn voice said, “There once was a girl from High Wickham …”
George grinned, Willy’s mouth rounded to an O, and Vicky was on her feet before he took the next breath.
“We haven’t made a toast,” she said quickly and picked up her glass. “To Albert, and the world’s worst limericks.”
“I’ll always remember the one about the boy from Powassan,” Willy said, dropping the fly-in-the-ice-cube into her glass as she got to her feet. “My sisters nearly fainted dead away when I told it.”
“Shouted it,” George corrected and rose to stand beside her. “From the bell tower. On a Sunday.”
“Albert dared me,” Willy said so matter-of-factly that Reid had to laugh.
“Then what choice did you have?” he asked.
“None at all,” Vicky said, and reached across to touch her glass to Willy’s. “To Albert. And the people who put up with him.”
“Amen to that,” George said, and four glasses clinked over the table.
Reid took a sip of his margarita and sat down while orders were placed and stories exchanged, knowing the party was under way at last, and there was only one more thing to do. He signaled the waitress. “Another pitcher.”
Willy set her glass down and touched George’s arm. “We should play a game of darts in Albert’s honor.”
“Sounds good,” George said and grinned at Reid. “Especially since I always win. You want to join us?”
“You go ahead,” Reid said. “We’re still working out the scattering details.”
George and Willy slid out of the booth and Reid turned to Vicky. “Do you have the note Albert left for us? We should look at it, see if there are any last minute instructions.”
“God forbid,” she said and opened her purse. Took out the envelope and handed it to him. “Keep your voice down when you read.”
“I’m sure he used discretion.”
“That would be a first.”
But instead of a slightly cynical “Albert” greeting, this card featured a basket of roses and baby’s breath on the front, with the words, Thank You, on a ribbon across the top.
Reid held the card at arm’s length, tipping it first to one side, then the other, hoping for a hidden picture in the flowers, a message in the ribbon, finally drawing the card back when he realized the truth. “Albert didn’t buy this,” he said.
Vicky leaned across the box of ashes. “Someone must have picked it up for him. Probably a friend.”
“A friend who didn’t know him very well.” Reid took a long swallow of his margarita and flipped open the card.
A folded piece of paper fell onto the table, but he set it aside for the moment to focus on the card itself. The preprinted, “Thank you for your kindness,” message inside had been stroked out with a firm hand and replaced by a single line:
If you’re reading this then I must be dead, which means Christmas in Bermuda is probably off.
Vicky’s groan held the same relief Reid had felt himself. The neat script might belong to someone else, but the words were strictly Albert. Picking up the folded paper that had tumbled out, Reid couldn’t help wishing the old man had called one last time, instead of sending someone out for cards.
The paper was lined, with three holes and a ragged edge where it had been torn in haste from a notebook and the handwriting matched that of the message in the card. Reid laid the letter on the table and straightened it with his hand, trying not to think about why Albert hadn’t been able to compose the letter himself.
“Dear Vicky and Reid,” he read aloud. “I assume you’re either in Seaport or damn close, because you’re the only people I know who would never have thought to open the card early, to cheat.”
Reid stopped and looked over at Vicky. “Are we that predictable?”
“We’re that honest.” She flicked a hand. “Go on.”
“I probably should have called,” Reid continued and leaned back into the corner of the booth with the letter. “ … but I’ve seen the guy in the next bed, and if I look half as bad as he does then I’d rather be alone, thanks. Just me and Pat, the nurse that my dear friend and lawyer, Lyle Newhouse, has paid to sit and watch me. Say hi, Pat.” Reid turned the page to Vicky. “There’s a bracket here that says ‘Hi, from Pat.’ ”
Vicky reached for her margarita. “Do you suppose Lyle gave her any advance warning?”
“He was too smart for that,” Reid said, and turned to the letter again. “Pat’s still here, by the way, even though she should have gone home hours ago. But what can I say? The Ferguson charm is still lethal.”
Vicky sipped. “Nothing wrong with the Ferguson ego either.”
“Pat’s the one who bought this god-awful card,” Reid continued, “and she’s also agreed to write the note for me, but one condition—that she only write the truth. No stories, no limericks, and Groucho stays in the bag—those are the rules. Since she has the pen, I’m stuck. But she tells me confession is good for the soul, and since she also tells me I won’t make it through the night, I figure I’ll do my confessing now, just in case she’s right.”
Reid set the letter down and topped up his glass.
“Do you want me to read the rest?” Vicky asked softly.
“It’s fine.” Reid took a long drink, set the glass down but found his throat still dry when he turned back to the page.
“While I’ll never know for sure,” he read. “I like to think you’ll find both Jackson’s Point and Willy, and that you’ll have a chance to meet the only woman who ever scared the hell out of me. But just in case, I’ll tell you now, she’s also the only woman I have ever loved. She was so beautiful, so young. So willing to believe me when I told her anything was possible, that she almost had me believing it, too. Almost convinced me we could put aside who we were and where we came from, and just be Willy and Albert. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. The funny thing is, I always meant to go back, to see if she still wanted me. That’s why I held on to that key all these years.
“But who was I kidding? Willy wanted so much from life, and I was going nowhere, on purpose. I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I thought I was a real rebel, a true adventurer, and in the beginning, maybe I was. Young and angry, wanting nothing more than to defy my father and my family. Later, I was only pretending, moving from place to place and job to job. Too afraid to stay, to see anything through because I might fail, and prove my family right. I wanted to go back to Seaport, wanted to learn to fly, too. But one year blended into the next and the next, until it was too late to go back for Willy, and nothing much mattered anymore. I had made my life, such as it was. And as I lie here looking at Pat, I have to ask myself—who’s to blame for that? My father for being a bastard? Come on, I’m sixty-eight years old. The only one to blame is myself. I let time slip away. But you, Reid, you’re different. You know how to see things through.
“The day you got your pilot’s license was one of the proudest of my life. Along with
the day you got married, and the days your children were born. You never knew it, but I lived through you and Vicky. The two of you have everything I threw away. That’s why I wanted you to take me back to Seaport—because that’s the last place in the world I remember being happy.”
Reid felt the silence at the table as he set the letter down. A silence that was remarkable only because of the noise surrounding them—the high-pitched laugh of the woman at the next table, the whine of a tired child behind them, and the off-key harmony of the wait staff singing “Happy Birthday” yet again at a table nearby. But the sounds were muffled and indistinct, barely reaching him through the rash of blood in his ears.
He turned the page over, searching for more. Another line, perhaps just a word. A last “Gotcha” from the man who had made practical jokes an art form. Because surely that’s what this was. A joke. Black humor at its finest, but there was nothing. He reached for the card, turned it over, but found only the price scratched out—by Pat, no doubt, not realizing it wouldn’t matter to Albert one way or the other.
Vicky laid a hand over his, her touch warm and soft. He linked his fingers with hers and held on, knowing this at least was real, was honest. The letter, on the other hand, was a lie.
“Reid, I know how hard—”
“What are you talking about?” He picked up the letter. “You mean this?” He dropped the page as though it was hot. “This is nothing. Just the words of a man near death, written by a stranger. A stranger with some vague notion of confession and truth. A truth that came more from drugs and pain and lying around for God only knows how long, without family around him because he wouldn’t call.”
“A stubborn Ferguson to the end,” Vicky whispered.
“And the bitch wouldn’t even give him his Grouchos.”
“I beat him fair and square,” Willy said, sauntering up to the table with George behind her.
“Only because I forgot my glasses. I couldn’t see a thing.”
Willy laughed. “Excuses, excuses.”
Reid looked up, watching them banter and laugh. Trying to picture Albert standing there beside Willy instead, to imagine him with a wife, children, topiary bushes. But all he saw was George with his old-fashioned manners and his patient smile, and Albert was nowhere at all.
Love, Albert Page 18