"That's it,” I say. "Thanks." Next I call Crazy Pete Sabatino. "Hey, Pete, it's Sally."
"Hi, Sally,” he says, sounding terribly depressed.
"Did you by chance dropped anything off at my house this week?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Okay, thanks. I just wanted to check."
After I get off I go outside to look at the thing, and discover that Scotty has left his mark on the side. Rascal.
This time I have the good sense to call Mother before going over to her house. "Mack's just getting ready to leave,” she says quickly.
"Actually, that's why I was calling. Mother, can you ask him to wait until I get there? I need his help-professionally. Really. So could you please ask him to wait?"
"Of course, darling!" she says, the relief and happiness in her voice saying it all.
No doubt she thought I was coming over to confront Mack. Mother may not know it, but I am a complete coward in this regard. I just wish they'd go away somewhere, say to France, to explore this part of their relationship. Actually, she'll never know how much I wanted to exclaim, when she answered the phone this morning, "Mother!" the way she always says, "Sally Goodwin Harrington!" whenever she is shocked at my behavior.
"I'll be right over," I promise.
Mother and Mack are walking around the pieces of the greenhouse Mack is undertaking to build when I arrive. Scotty bounds around the comer of the house to find Abigail, and then the two go off into the cornfield. (What exactly they do out there, we don't know.) Carrying the load of concrete that was left on my doorstep, I stagger over to the ancient picnic table under our old maple and set it down heavily. Mother and Mack are walking toward me, looking puzzled.
"Good morning," I say cheerfully.
They say hello and gather around to look at this thing. "Mack, I have an enormous favor to ask of you. I need someone who knows something about construction materials to analyze this thing and, well, frankly, there's nobody around here in Castleford I can trust. I don't suppose you might have a colleague in engineering or architecture who might be able to tell me what this is and where it likely came from?"
He looks at me, a little perplexed.
"I think it might have something to do with the Preston Roadhouse," I explain. "Someone left it on my porch. And if I know what it is or where it's from, I might be able to figure out why someone left it for me."
"And you can't trust anyone?" he asks, glancing at my mother.
"I need someone from outside the loop. When it comes to construction, everybody's connected in this town."
Mack can't help but smile. "You lead a very exciting life, Sally, don't you? Murder here, arson there."
He is a bit short, but Mack is an attractive man. Quiet, yet manly. I suspect he will be very good for Mother. He's nothing like my father, but I suspect that is also a good thing. And he's just that much older than Mother that I don't worry about him dumping her. She's still way out in front for her age group and he'd be a fool to do anything but commit himself totally.
I think of Spencer and feel the wind leave my sails. But he hasn't slept with Verity since, I remind myself.
Verity. God. I have to see her tomorrow.
"Are you sure this isn't something that should go to the police?" Mother says, reaching out to touch it but then drawing her hand back.
"Not until I know what it is." I point. "Scotty whizzed on this part, don't touch it."
"I know what it is," Mother suddenly says. "Or what it's part of." She points. "That looks like part of a cement buttress. Where the cables, like that thing, are run through the cement when it's wet, and then when it's dry, they take the mold away." She looks to Mack. "Don't you think?"
He shrugs helplessly. "Sorry, Belle—I could write out a formula to calculate how much weight a buttress can take, but I'm afraid I don't know very much about construction. But I do know someone who does."
"Do you? Could that someone look at it for me?"
"I'll go check now," Mack says, starting for the house. "I'm just afraid he might be away over the summer leave."
We go inside and I have some coffee with Mother while Mack calls around. We're in luck; his friend, a professor of engineering, is at his home in Middletown. He invites Mack to bring the sample over to his lab at the university tomorrow. I help load the concrete debris into Mack's trunk and whistle for Scotty. I've got to get home and get to work.
After all, I have a feature article to write for Expectations. I have to get ready to meet with my boss tomorrow, the woman my lover has been having an affair with for over two years.
It is terrible of me, I suppose, but when I turn into my driveway and see Doug's Volvo I want to scream. Regardless of how I may have felt last night, the last thing I feel like doing today is facing him. Although he still has a key to the cottage, he has not used it, but is sitting in a chair in the backyard throwing a tennis ball on the roof of the house.
"Hi," I say.
"Hi," he says. He looks terrible. His eyes are swollen with fatigue; he needs a haircut. Otherwise the Docker shorts show off his great thighs, the polo shirt shows his dedication to the gym and his smile, the dedication his parents had to orthodontics. He stands up. "I'm sorry, Sally, but I love you."
He says this simply, holding his hands out, palms toward me. "I know you've met someone new, someone you're crazy about, but I can't just let you walk away. I can't do it."
He does not sound like a lawyer in court. He sounds more like the Doug I fell in love with a long time ago, unsure but determined, a little shy but with an objective.
"Come inside," I murmur, leading the way into the kitchen. "I'll make us some iced tea." While I get things ready, Doug sits at the kitchen table. It's as if he has never been here before. "Doug," I say matter-of-factly, "I don't know what I'm doing."
He doesn't say anything.
"And it's true, I have met someone. But I have no idea where it might go." I crash the ancient ice trays in the sink. (Someday I'm going to break down and spend a dollar on plastic ones instead of sticking with the metal ones that came with the refrigerator in 1812.) "The one thing I do know," I say, looking down into the sink, "is that I've done something that may be irreparable in our relationship. I'm not sure you'll ever trust me again."
I stand there, with my back to him, waiting. His answer comes easily enough. "Oh, I will. Because you'll never do it again. I know you. You can't even look me in the eye, you feel so guilty. And Sally, we didn't have a firm commitment."
I turn around. "I had a commitment to you."
"And clearly you shouldn't have. Clearly there was something you were not getting that you needed to get from someone else."
I turn back around to put the ice in the pitcher. I wish Doug would stop being so nice.
"It's a lot like when Jane and I were working together," he says. "I wanted to sleep with her, remember?"
How could I forget? I hated him for it and yet I didn't blame him, because our sex life had been in a funny phase. The passion had vanished, leaving only tiredness in its wake. I'm still not sure what was going on. It wasn't just ebb and flow; it was something else. Like our feelings had moved into a serious zone and our bodies were like, uh-oh, back up, this is getting too close. It was as though I couldn't give him everything I had, even if I had wanted to.
“The question is," he says quietly, "whether you will ever find me as sexually attractive as you once did. Or if there is something about me that simply isn't what you want."
That's not what this is about; there is nothing about Doug I don't want and yet I know if I try to explain it—which is what he wants me to do—then I'm going to end up discussing the depth of the love I feel for him. And if I talk about that love, he's going to know that he still has his claws in me because that is what I always talk about when we're about to get back together again.
And, of course, this would be the easiest course, wouldn't it?
To simply be grateful that Doug wants me back, to bask in that comfortable love I have felt for years and ignore the sense of failure I always feel when we get back together.
But I don't want to do it this time. It's not fair to Doug. It's not fair to me. Perhaps he doesn't really get it, the depth of my betrayal to our relationship. That I left it with nary a glance backward, and just for sex. I didn't even know the guy!
Of course I feel like killing Spencer, because yesterday I could have had this talk with Doug, no problem, and told him we shouldn't try again. But today, now that I know Spencer's been having it off with Verity, that he's scared of her, I'm finding this exchange with Doug difficult; the appeal of falling back into our old ways is there. But I cannot do that, because I know I am genuinely at sea.
I know I love Doug like a lifelong friend. I know I like sex with him. I know I am utterly enthralled with that idiot Spencer, and feel as though I have discovered a whole other kind of person I wasn't sure existed. I also know that I will very likely end up losing both men, because the whole situation is so indicative of what my mother has been trying to tell me—that I have to grow up.
It is said that complicated people have complicated problems. I have decided I must simplify things, even if just for today.
I pour two glasses of iced tea and come over to sit at the table with Doug. Scotty is nosing me, trying to say something, but I can't pay attention to him now. "All I can tell you," I say quietly, "is that I don't know where I am headed, but I'm pretty sure it is not back to where we've been."
"I know."
I look at him. He smiles a little ironic smile and takes a sip of the iced tea. "I came to tell you that I'll give you six months. That would be January. After the holidays. We'll leave each other alone until then, and then we'll talk to see how we feel. If we feel as though we want to be together, then I'm going to insist we get married. As to whether we live here, or move to New York or elsewhere, we'll figure that out."
I don't know where the tears come from, but they're falling. Is it exhaustion or stress or simply that I cannot believe Doug is saying this. In the past, he'd always indicated that the thought of getting married again was something akin to being seared with red-hot irons.
Of course, by January, a man like Doug is going to have any number of good candidates to fill the void I've left. More and more I'm beginning to realize that my void will not be a big one. Friend, confidante and Saturday night sleep over partner does not a wife make.
At any rate, I am crying because this makes me love Doug the way I did in the beginning—and the way I did when we made up before.
You must grow up, Mother's voice says. It is not good that adolescent behavior makes you feel comfortable. Oh, pooh, Mother, I think as I take Doug's hand to thank him. A short while later, we are hugging at the front door. And then he is gone and I am crying again, this time with Scotty trying to lick the tears away.
I finally wash my face and pull myself together and move to my desk in the living room to get to work. The telephone starts to ring and like a fool, I pick it up.
"Oh, Sally, thank God you're there. It's me and I'm a mess. I've left you a hundred messages."
I glance at the machine and the light is blinking, although it says there are eight messages, not a hundred. I'm beginning to realize that Spencer gets kind of dramatic.
"I had to tell you about Verity," he rushes on. "And surely you can understand why I was scared to after—well, after we had just been together that one night and scarcely knew each other. I thought for sure it would send you running away, never to come back."
The contrast with Doug an hour before is not flattering to Spencer. He sounds like a gangly teenager. His mother, I think, should tell him to grow up.
"Look, you've got to let me see you in person. I can't leave things this way, not for another day."
"Maybe it's not me you should see," I say. "Maybe you feel guilty because you know Verity's in Litchfield, waiting to see you."
There is a decided pause and then Spencer's voice grows deep. "I did not ever, and would not ever, meet her in her family's home. I know you think I'm a scumbag, but I'm hopeful someday you'll understand how this started. It's not about love, it's not about breaking up her family—it was about sexual release for both of us."
I wish I hadn't heard this rationale a hundred times when I lived in Los Angeles. I wish I didn't know that in Spencer's circles, this behavior is pretty normal. I certainly wish I didn't feel as though I have hopelessly dirtied my soul by succumbing to him and, by association, joined this merry band of sexual hobbyists.
"What I don't understand," I say, "is how you could betray her so easily. Two years is a long time."
"How did I betray her?"
"You were supposed to find out how my article was going, not sleep with me."
"I don't think Verity could care less if I slept with you," he says. "What will set her off is the idea that having you in my life means I want to cut her out of mine."
"Hasn't this woman ever heard of sexually transmitted diseases? She could care less who you sleep with?"
"Sally—" He sighs. "Will you just calm down for a minute?"
"I am calm."
"Just listen to me, all right? The last time Verity and I were together—"
"When?"
"Um, about two weeks ago."
"Where?"
He sighs again. "Here. At my apartment."
I wonder if I'll ever even see this man again.
"How do you know she doesn't have another young stud around, Spencer? How do you know she hasn't picked up herpes or VD or AIDS or something?"
"There is no other stud. And I'm clean, I've told you that. Verity is a maniac on the subject. She's terrified of Corbett—you must have suspected that, and yet their life together sexually is abysmal for her—"
"My heart goes out to her," I say sarcastically.
"You've got me so upset, Sally—"
"I've got you upset!" I am furious. "How dare you feed me such bull about your sordid love life! Do you think for one second I would have gotten involved with you if I had known you were servicing Verity Rhodes? Are you crazy?"
"That's why I didn't tell you. I knew you wouldn't. And I knew I had only a small window to get through to you, that you had a man in your life. Verity told me that, and I knew you'd be back in Connecticut, and that night we went to the theater and we talked and talked—remember? How we talked about everything that night and how we both knew, we just knew, there was something big going on between us, something that needed to be explored, and I'm not talking about sex—"
"But that's what we did, didn't we?" I say, trying to remind myself of reality as I quickly pull myself out of the dream of that first night, for that first night had been magical, there had been a connection between us. We had discovered we were intellectually similar, that our hobbies and tastes and interests were similar, that our disasters in relationships had been similar, too, and that our dedication to work was unhealthy, in ways, and that our moods, that all-or-nothing kind of attitude, was not good...
I remember so clearly stopping on Fifth Avenue in front of the Barnes & Noble windows, where he pointed out a book he had edited, and told me stories of other books in the window. And then he had turned to me and taken both my hands in his and said, "I feel so wonderful being able to tell you this, because it's not so interesting to most people. I mean—you get it, Sally. That the glamour is fleeting, the work is long, long hours and it doesn't make a good story. That work is really the only story there is in publishing-long hours and a lot of disappointments and then that one breakthrough, every great once in a while, that keeps you going."
"Sally, please," Spencer urges, sounding hoarse, "let me drive out tonight. Not to do anything but talk. I've got to see you."
"Don't you think it's Verity you should see?"
He is debating how to respond to this. "I can't talk to Verity about what has happened,
Sally, because I'm afraid she'll try to hurt you."
"So you're going to wait until my article is published?"
"I think I have to," he says quietly.
"And how are you going to duck her until that time?"
"I don't know," he says honestly. "But I'm going to have to."
"Not if you're not seeing me anymore. In fact, you'd be doing me a great favor by sleeping with her and keeping her happy until I'm published in her magazine," I say meanly.
"Sally, listen to me—"
"I don't want to. I'm tired, Spencer. I'm tired of all this."
"Sally, I'm never sleeping with Verity Rhodes again! Meeting you only confirmed what I knew before. As long as I was doing it, I was avoiding my own life. And then I met you and I knew what I wanted."
"It hasn't even been two weeks, Spencer!"
"At least let me talk to you later," he says. "Please. Just to know the lines of communication are open."
He might as well have said, "Just so I know you haven't gone running back to Doug."
"Sure," I say. "Maybe around eight. I've got things to do."
"Great." If I weren’t so angry, the relief I hear in his voice would strike a small pain in my heart.
When I shut out the world, I am always amazed at how much work I get done. By seven in the evening I have finished transcribing a draft of each interview and have settled in at the kitchen table to highlight quotes. The piece is shaping itself rather vividly in my mind, because the shape of Cassy's persona has become stronger and stronger. This is a very special person; worth celebrating, certainly. She has taken a not terribly promising hand and played it into an incredibly productive life.
Around seven-thirty I let Scotty out the back door and notice that Crazy Pete is sitting on my backstairs.
"Hi," I say. "You're not on the lam again, are you?"
"No," he says. "I just stopped by. I drove over but you were working. You didn't even look up."
I vaguely remember Scotty barking and my decision to ignore him. I walk out to sit down in a beach chair facing him. "So how are you?"
He shrugs. "Okay, I guess."
Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5) Page 27