He turned and walked backward as he talked to her. “I don’t know if I could, but I’d be willing to try.”
Chapter 2
Julia waited until Eric was inside his house before she took her suitcase out of the car and went inside to change. She started to put on a pair of linen slacks and then discarded them in favor of chinos and a knit top. It wasn’t a date she’d agreed to, simply a shared meal.
On impulse, as she passed through the garden, she stopped to pick a bouquet. During the desolate eight months a timer had kept the small lawn watered and a gardener had come by to mow, but no one had tended the flowers. The bleeding hearts, foxglove, cosmos, plume poppy, and alumroot had long ago spilled from their tidy beds, collapsing from the weight of their flowers onto the brick walkways.
After picking only a few blooms from each plant, she presented the colorful assortment to Eric as he opened the door.
“For me?” He seemed genuinely surprised at the casual offering. “This is a first.”
“No one has ever given you flowers?” She’d always sent them to Ken, everything from single roses to wildly extravagant arrangements.
“Friends sent plants when I started my practice, but nothing that bloomed.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where he took a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with water. “It smells wonderful in here,” she said. Her stomach growled in anticipation.
“It’s amazing what you can put together with cans and packages.” He put the bouquet in the glass and the glass on the table, letting the flowers arrange themselves. The effect was in keeping with the casual dishes, paper napkins, and multicolored candles already there.
“What can I do to help?” Julia asked when he went back to the stove to stir the sauce. Over the years she’d been in Andrew’s kitchen a hundred times and felt almost as comfortable in it as she did in her own.
“The garlic bread should be ready.” He handed her an oven mitt. “There’s a knife in the drawer by the sink.”
They worked together, completing the meal in an easy, companionable silence, as if they were old friends who’d shared the ritual a dozen times before. When everything was on the table, Eric poured the wine, lit the candles, and held Julia’s chair.
“Thank you,” she said, sliding into place.
When he was seated across from her, he held his glass up in a toast. “To broken faucets and new friendships.”
She touched her glass to his. “And successful publishing ventures.”
His thick eyebrows, several shades darker than his hair, drew together in a questioning look. “How did you know?”
“It was simple deduction, Dr. Lawson. I asked myself what a physician on hiatus would be doing with a computer and desk in the middle of the living room.”
“And from that you concluded I was writing a book?”
“That . . .” She smiled and reached for something on the counter behind him. Holding it up, she added, “And this—Ten Steps to Writing the Best-Selling Novel.”
“You had me there for a minute.”
She put the book back. “Have you always wanted to write?”
“Since I was in high school. I could never see myself actually making a living at it, though. Medicine seemed a more promising way to feed myself, at least in the beginning.”
“What happened?”
He reached for a piece of bread and laid it on the edge of his plate. “I got tired of some twenty-year-old sitting behind a desk in an insurance office telling me what tests I could order for my patients.”
Her father was a doctor, the complaint a familiar one. “I thought the problem was getting better.”
“Not fast enough for me. I figured out that my staff was spending as much time on the phone getting permission to treat people as I was treating them.”
“So you just up and quit?”
“Not until I’d taken my frustration out on all the wrong people, including my wife. Shelly tried to get me to see what I was doing, but by the time I did, it was too late.”
Julia took a sip of wine before commenting. “Don’t you hate hindsight?”
“You sound as if you’ve been there.”
“Ken had his heart attack on the way to work. He was on the freeway at the time—the fast lane.” Which lane he was in, the temperature, the clothes she’d worn, were only a few of the meaningless things about that morning she couldn’t put aside. She speared a mushroom and absently pushed it around the plate, focusing on the path it made through the red sauce to keep the image of Ken behind the wheel of his car from filling her mind. “There was a chain reaction, as people tried to avoid hitting him, that tied up traffic for hours.”
The accident had made the national news that night. The local stations and newspapers carried the story for days. Weeks and months later came the magazine articles. Half a year went by before she felt safe looking at any of the business journals that came to the house.
One detail, however, had escaped all of the media sources; it was something she’d never told anyone. For eight long months she’d kept her painful secret. It was time she let go. “I was on the freeway that morning. I left the house a half hour after Ken and got caught in the backup from his accident.” The rest was harder, something she hated admitting even to herself. “All I could think about . . . my only feeling was frustration that the wreck was going to make me late for my hair appointment.”
She chanced looking at him. He appeared neither shocked nor repulsed at her self-damning revelation. “I got to the accident a few minutes after the ambulance arrived, but I was so busy watching the clock, I didn’t even look over to see what kind of car it was. The doctor told me later that Ken was still alive when they got him out of his Range Rover. I could have been with him if I hadn’t been so damn—”
“Even if you had stopped, it wouldn’t have changed anything. Beating yourself up about it is useless.” He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “The hardest thing any of us has to do when someone close to us dies is accept that there are times when shit just happens. Nothing we could have done or said would have made any difference.”
“I could have told him good-bye.”
“You’re imagining something that wouldn’t have happened even if you had stopped. The rescue workers had to get Ken out of there as fast as they could. There’s no way they would have stopped to let you talk to him. At best, you would have been in the front seat of the ambulance when he died.”
They were the words she needed to hear, not absolution but reality. “You must have been one hell of a doctor. I’ll bet your patients miss you.”
“I left them in good hands.”
“Have you always had a fatalistic attitude, or did it come with being a doctor?”
“I suppose a part of me has. However, I’ve never taken it so far as to think your faucet was predestined to break tonight so we could meet.” His eyes lit with a spark of amusement. “Some things in life I chalk up to blind luck.”
He was flirting with her. The thought left her disconcerted. She quickly changed the subject. “Do you like being a writer?”
“Some days.”
She twirled her fork against her spoon, capturing a round of spaghetti. “And the others?”
“It just seems like plain old work.”
“Have you given yourself a deadline?” she asked.
“For finishing or succeeding?”
“Either—both.”
“The end of the year to finish. After that it’s out of my hands for the most part.” He reached for another piece of bread. “How about you? Are you working on any deadlines?”
“Meaning?”
“Oh, you know . . . three months to get the finances in order, six months to grieve, a year to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, that kind of thing.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never been that organized. Things just kind of happen with me.”
“I’ve always admired people like you.�
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“You’re kidding.” She took a bite and licked the sauce from the corner of her mouth. “I was under the impression I drove your kind crazy.”
“My kind?”
“People who are driven to succeed. Overachievers.”
He winced.
She had her wineglass halfway to her mouth and put it down again. “What did I say?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on . . . I thought we were being honest with each other.”
“You sounded just like my wife—my ex-wife. She used words like those when I tried to talk her into giving me another chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.” He put his napkin on the table and leaned forward on his elbows. “I see my kids every other weekend now.”
“That must be hard on all of you.”
He made a disparaging sound. “I hate like hell to say it, but it’s more time than I spent with them when we were living together.”
She could see the admission had cost him and offered a commiserating smile. “There’s that damn hindsight again.”
“Time for a change of subject.” He put his hands against the table and pushed back his chair. “More wine?”
“No thanks. I think I’ve had enough.” It was easier to blame the wine for her talkativeness than to acknowledge the need that prompted it.
He brought the bottle to the table and poured himself a healthy splash. “Before Andrew left he started telling me about an old couple who spend July here, but we got interrupted and he never got around to finishing the story.”
“Joe and Maggie.” Just thinking about them brought a smile. “They’re the ones who sold the house to Ken. They kind of adopted him in the process.”
“Andrew said there was a special connection.”
“They really didn’t want to sell, but Joe had had a stroke that used up his and Maggie’s savings, and they really needed the money. Ken was renting the place at the time and told them that if they would carry the note themselves so that he wouldn’t have to look for outside financing, he would give them the summer months to do with as they pleased for as long as he owned the house.”
“I wondered how the place had become a summer rental—Joe and Maggie used it to supplement their income. Now it makes sense.”
“Actually, Joe gave the money to Ken.” Again she smiled. “He was so proud of himself for figuring out a way to help Ken financially that Ken didn’t have the heart to tell him he didn’t need it.” Every September for eighteen years Joe and Maggie and Ken had gotten together for dinner. Joe would give Ken the rental check, even after he realized Ken was long past needing financial help—and Ken would give a toast to their friendship. When Ken and Julia were married, Joe and Maggie came as honored guests. At the end of summer the September dinner reservation went from three to four. It was as if Julia had always been a part of their little group.
“They sound like special people.”
“They are. But then so are the others. Joe was very selective in whom he chose as renters.”
“It will be nice to see someone there. The place was getting pretty desolate looking.” It took half a second for what he’d said to hit. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Julia. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s all right. The same thought hit me when I drove up.”
“How about some coffee? It would only take a minute to fix.”
She shook her head. “I should probably call it a night. I’ve got a big day ahead of me tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
Deciding that protesting would take more effort than giving in, she let him see her to her front door.
“Thank you for dinner.” She stepped inside and turned to face him. “It was wonderful. You really know your cans and packages.”
“Someday I’ll have to show you what I can do with bakeries. There isn’t one within a five-mile radius I haven’t tried.”
“Now you’re stepping on my territory.”
“Restaurants?” he asked.
“I have a drawer full of menus.”
“Delis?”
“Kosher or non?”
He held his hands up in defeat. “I yield to your time and experience.”
She smiled. “Thanks again for the plumbing lesson.”
“Anytime.” He stepped up to the landing, leaned forward, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
Julia waited until she saw him cross the road, then went inside and closed the door. The thought hit that she was as alone as she had been that afternoon, but not as lonely. Progress could be a funny thing sometimes, coming not only when one least expected it, but from a direction never imagined.
Chapter 3
Eric zipped his jacket against the early morning fog as he stopped to examine a sand dollar that had washed up on a wave. The last time Jason and Susan spent their weekend with him at the beach, Eric had blithely promised Jason he would collect the fragile shells for him so that he could surprise his mother with a homemade wreath for her birthday, never suspecting how hard it would be to find them unbroken. In three days he’d be in Sacramento for their twice-a-month visit, and the box Jason had left to be filled held less than half a dozen shells.
Susan had requested he bring her a starfish, orange like the ones she’d seen in San Francisco with her mother and her mother’s new “friend,” Roger. He’d already found a nice big one for her in a shop near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.
Even after being divorced almost two years, Eric had still felt a moment of possessiveness when he heard about one of Shelly’s dates, especially if that date involved the kids. Now she was engaged and about to be married, and he’d been forced to accept that they were never going to get back together. Still, he couldn’t picture her with someone else. Just as he couldn’t imagine himself ever loving another woman.
Some people were meant for each other.
He turned over the sand dollar, saw a large hole on the crown, and returned the shell to the sea.
And sometimes one of them was too blind, or too stupid, or too preoccupied, to realize that even something predestined needed nurturing to survive.
Behind him a lone gull landed in the cream-colored foam left by a wave. For several seconds it explored the popping bubbles, then shook its head and flew away, disappearing in the fog. Before he’d moved into Andrew’s house, Eric had never considered himself an ocean person, preferring to spend his free weekends in the mountains, his vacations in Europe. But in the months he’d walked the beach and listened to the waves, he’d come to understand the lure and, finally, to be taken in by it.
Selfishly he liked having the beach to himself, which was why he came there in the early morning when it was him and one or two fishermen. He also came late at night, when he would happen upon the occasional lovers, but they were as oblivious of him as of their surroundings. Neighbors had told him how dramatically things changed in the summer, how the tourists filled every campground, hotel, and rental house in the cluster of small cities between their small cove and Santa Cruz, how they would come to the beach to stake out a section of sand for their day-long homage to sun and surf. He’d been forewarned about music that blared from untended radios and how often free-flowing beer led to strutting and puffing and the occasional fight between young men seeking to impress.
Eric always listened with what he hoped was a properly concerned expression. Although summer would mean the loss of privacy and his solitary walks, in a strange way he found he was looking forward to the change. In reality, he wasn’t so far removed from those years himself that he’d forgotten their sweet misery or felt the need to condemn their excesses. Perhaps when his own children neared that age his fear would make him less tolerant and he would feel compelled to bluster and warn. Until then he would bask in the memories.
A wave lapped at his feet, reminding him why he was there. He toed aside a tangle of kelp and went back to searching for sand dollars.
Julia came to the previous night’s
high-water mark and stopped to roll up the pant legs to her khaki slacks before she stepped onto the cold, wet sand. She wasn’t normally out and about this early, but the fog and the empty beach had been such a welcome sight when she’d looked outside that morning that she’d been lured to go for a walk even before she’d had her first cup of coffee.
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, she moved forward to let the waves wash over her feet. As the water retreated, it stole sand from beneath her feet and forced her to readjust to keep her balance. It reminded her of the way her life had been since Ken’s death. Every time she felt herself on sure footing again, something happened that left her scrambling to stay upright.
The Wednesday of the first week in December, when she’d actually begun to believe she would make it through Christmas without him, a package had arrived that Ken had ordered a month before he died. It was a Faberge piece he’d bought at auction, a lily of the valley spray made out of diamonds and pearls propped in a glass made out of clear topaz. Without question the miniature had cost a fortune, but for her the value came from the care he’d taken to find the gift, knowing how the flower would please her.
She’d waited until their anniversary in March to scatter his ashes at sea, believing the symbolism would help her say the good-bye she’d missed on the roadside. Instead she’d gone home that night with the quiet conviction she and Ken were bound by ties that could never be broken. Only in death had she come to realize how truly perfect a match they had been, fulfilling each other’s needs with a joy that made the giving seem a gift. From the day they met they had inhabited a world of their own making, where understanding was expressed with a look and love with a smile.
It was her luck and her misfortune that they had found each other. Had they never met, she might have been able to settle for something less in another man. But now, having known the love of a lifetime, she realized more clearly with each passing day that she was destined to live the rest of her life alone.
Sometimes in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep, an irrational anger would steal into her feelings of loss. She would question how Ken could abandon her after spoiling her for any other man. Why hadn’t he told her that he had a grandfather and uncle who had both died of heart attacks before they were fifty? She would have forced him to take better care of himself, made him go to the doctor for more frequent checkups. Hadn’t he known that it wasn’t just his life he’d held in his hands, but hers, too?
The Beach House Page 2