“Very good,” Claire said. “What else?”
“You’ve had a very stressful day,” he said. “I know about the wedding, and since you look just like Patrick, I can assume you’re a Fitzpatrick, so you would have attended. There’s no ring, so you’re not married, and not recently divorced, because there’s no indentation on your ring finger. You probably endured lots of comments about not being married, which the commenters thought were well-meaning but made you want to poke their eyes out. You have kind eyes; you probably also act as the peacemaker among the various hot-headed Fitzpatricks. I also know you’re sensible and compassionate; you didn’t agree with the conspiracy club.”
“What do you do for a living?” Claire asked him. “Are you a criminal psychologist or a forensic medical investigator?”
“Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid,” he said. “Actually, I’m currently unemployed, although I do have a job lined up in Pendleton that starts in a month.”
“What will you do in Pendleton?’
“Work for the city,” he said. “The pay’s not great but I can’t afford to be choosy in this economy. What do you do, by the way? I’m stumped.”
“Up until this week I was a hairdresser, subbing for Denise down at the Bee Hive,” she said. “Before that I was the personal assistant to a horrible famous person who paid me an outrageous sum of money to make her look good.”
“Glad you gave that up,” he said. “That kind of thing can be hard on the soul.”
“Yes,” Claire said. “It was.”
She realized he was still holding her hand, so she pulled it away. It had been nice, the way he held her hand, sort of consoling.
“You’d be a good priest,” she said. “I think I’d confess everything to you.”
“Now that would be a terrible job,” he said. “There’s the prohibition on sex, for one thing - that’s an obvious minus; and all the poor saps pleading for forgiveness just for being human, there’s another; plus having to preach a doctrine no one can live up to; and then begging for money to help the people they’d all rather round up and sterilize. Besides, I don’t look good in a dress. My legs are my best feature; I like to show them off.”
“You seem to have given this a lot of thought,” she said. “Did you once consider the priesthood?’
“I’m not Catholic,” he said. “Or anything else, for that matter.”
“Really?” Claire said. “Not even when you were growing up?”
“No,” he said. “My mother didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see, touch, feel, or hear, but my father was more of a philosopher. He said only the weak and ignorant need the threat of fire and brimstone to inspire them to be good citizens.”
“He sounds like quite a character.”
“He was,” he said. “He died this year, from liver failure. My mother passed a couple years ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” Claire said.
He flinched, as if her sympathy physically hurt him. He seemed to brush it off quickly, however, and smiled, albeit a grudging, half smile. Maybe he was tired of other people’s feelings about his loss, or of their imposition on his grief.
“I don’t remember seeing you around town,” he said. “I’m from Familysburg, but I get over here fairly often.”
“I just moved back,” she said. “My dad’s Ian Fitzpatrick; you might know him.”
“I do indeed,” he said. “A very good man, the Chief, one of the best. I heard he had a stroke.”
“Multiple TMIs they call them,” Claire said. “He’s got dementia.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ll take a quick death over a long illness any day.”
“Me, too.”
“So you came home to help out,” he said. “That’s good of you.”
“Hopefully, it will make up for the shallow life I’ve led up to this point,” she said.
“At least you realize it and want to change,” he said. “Most never do.”
“Has your life been meaningful up to this point?” she asked. “I mean, do you feel like you’ve contributed something to the world, made it a better place somehow?”
“Sometimes I do,” he said. “And sometimes I think the best you can do is leave the place no worse than how you found it.”
“You inherited your father’s philosophy gene,” she said.
“And his love of Scotch,” he said, raising his glass. “Lucky for me my late mother had strong impulse-control and self-discipline genes, or my liver’s days might also be numbered.”
“So you’re an orphan now,” she said.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. I wonder if there’s any benefit to that; some sort of credit union or guild I could join?”
“Do you know Scott Gordon?” she asked. “He’s recently orphaned as well.”
“I know Scott very well,” he said. “He’s one of my favorite people, actually, the kind that restores your faith in humanity. As a matter of fact, he helped me get the job in Pendleton.”
“Can I ask why you’re unemployed?”
“Certainly,” he said. “It’s no secret, especially not in Familysburg. I recently discovered that a subordinate of mine was having an affair with my wife.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is,” he said. “Even more so because he was, or at least I thought he was, a very good friend of mine. Best man at our wedding, in fact.”
“So you socked him and got fired?”
“No, nothing so dramatic,” he said. “Remember, I have my mother’s impulse control and all that self-discipline. No, I quit. I didn’t want to have to look at him every day and it seemed unfair to deprive him of his job just because he made the same mistake I once did.”
“It sounds like you’ve had a pretty crappy year,” Claire said. “I guess I could see why you’d want to drink in another town.”
“Earlier this evening I had a work-related meeting here in town,” he said. “I just didn’t feel like going back to the hotel I’m living in. It’s too depressing.”
“I’ve been living with my dad, who’s so delusional he thinks my mom is cheating on him with his doctor, and he hates me because he thinks I’m covering for her,” Claire said. “I’d rather stay in a depressing hotel than go home.”
“You’d be welcome,” he said. “Anytime.”
The air between them became charged with that sparking energy that is produced when two people hit it off, quickly become confidants, and are also sexually attracted to each other. It tended to make Claire dizzy and prone to poor decision making.
“I think I better pass,” Claire said.
“Probably the wisest decision,” he said. “You have correctly surmised that I’m a drowning man; not someone you ought to cling to so much as swim away from, in order not to be pulled down in the existential undertow.”
“Oh, I’m tempted,” she said. “I’m just trying to practice some of that impulse control your mom was so good at.”
“Sensible woman,” he said. “My heart is a black hole of doom, evidently.”
“I seriously doubt that,” she said. “Listen.”
“What?”
The song “Wicked Game,” by Chris Isaak, had begun to play on the bar sound system.
“That is my favorite song,” she said. “I was feeling so sorry for myself today at the reception, because Patrick had put together a playlist of everyone’s favorite songs and no one knew what mine was. Nobody asked me, and nobody knows it, but this song is my favorite.”
“Good to know,” he said. “Care to dance?”
“I should probably close up before we’re arrested for being open after hours.”
“I think you’re safe tonight,” he said. “Besides, you seem like a woman who needs to dance to her favorite song.”
Claire came around the bar and met him in the middle of the aisle. He took her in his arms like a man who knew what he was doing, and Claire felt a little light-headed as she allowed him to lead. With
one hand on his arm, she felt the hard muscle there, and with the other hand clasped in his hand, she felt that warm, comforting feeling again. He smelled like whiskey and whatever detergent he used to wash his clothes.
He was only slightly taller than she was, but still she had to look up to look into his eyes. His smile was sad and weary, but his eyes were kind. It didn’t feel like pity. It felt like compassion, kindness, and attraction. It felt good.
Dancing with a perfect stranger in the Rose and Thorn, in the middle of the night, Claire should have felt lonely and miserable, but she didn’t. She felt like she was going to be okay on her own. She felt like she was right where she should be. When the song ended, he didn’t let go.
“I’d like to walk you home, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’d like to see that you get there all right.”
Claire closed up and locked the door behind her while he waited on the stoop. She was very aware of him as they walked down Peony Street. His arm brushed against hers a few times, and Claire almost believed it caused sparks.
“Why do you think your wife cheated?” she asked him.
“She was my second wife, and much younger than I am,” he said. “My first wife died of cancer two years ago, just after my mother passed away.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
There was that flinch again, plus he clenched his jaw.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “As you can imagine, I was a mess when I met her. I was drinking a little bit more than I should have. As soon as I sobered up I realized what a huge mistake I’d made. I was honest with her; offered to pay for the divorce. She refused, said I’d made the commitment and, by God, she was going to see that I honored it.”
“I don’t understand,” Claire said. “Why didn’t she just divorce you and then do whatever she liked? Why stay married to you and then cheat with your best friend?”
“I rejected her, you see, so she had to hurt me somehow,” he said. “She had to make it very clear to the world that it was she who was rejecting me.”
“Sounds like you’re better off,” Claire said. “Your friend may have done you a favor.”
“Poor guy,” he said. “His wife left him last year for some guy she was fooling around with, so he was in the same sorry state I was in when I met her. No, I’m not mad at him, not really; or her, for that matter. What I am is chronically, deeply, profoundly embarrassed, for everybody.”
“I’m starting to think romantic relationships are just a huge, cosmic practical joke,” Claire said.
“Are you seeing somebody?” he asked her.
“Kind of,” she said. “Sort of.”
“That sounds precarious.”
“It is,” she said. “He wants me to tell him all my secrets.”
“What a horrible idea,” he said. “Don’t do it.”
“The problem is,” she said. “I think the relationship is conditional on that point. If I don’t open up, he’ll think I have something to hide and won’t trust me.”
“There are some things that should stay hidden,” he said, “for the good of everyone. Wouldn’t better evidence of trust be to say, no matter what I eventually find out about you, and even if we part ways because of it, I will assume you meant well by me at the time, and will still regard you with affection?”
“Wouldn’t that be lovely?” she said. “Just to accept someone as they are now and not hold their past against them.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Do you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I certainly don’t regard my most recent wife with affection, and I don’t believe she meant well by me. I think she saw marrying me as a way to not have to work, along with free health benefits and a retirement plan.”
“Will you be all right, do you think?” she asked him. “Not soon, maybe, but eventually?”
“Oh, probably,” he said. “As soon as the house sells, I’ll take my half and buy a small place in Pendleton, try to start anew, as they say. Will you come visit me? Even though I’m barely a shell of the man I once was? And, honestly, the full man I used to be was never that great.”
“I will,” Claire said. “Take my number.”
They paused so he could record her information in his cell phone.
“Do you want mine?” he asked.
“Text me later,” she said. “Then I’ll have it.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way to her front door, where Claire turned to say goodnight. The moon, now fully revealed in the night sky above Rose Hill, was the largest, brightest full moon she’d ever seen.
“Will you look at that,” she said.
“It’s called a super moon,” Laurie said. “We won’t have another one until next year in August.”
“It’s beautiful,” Claire said.
“It will be even closer tomorrow night,” Laurie said. “I’ll think of you when I look at it.”
The weary sadness in his eyes and the wry smile belied the romance of his statement. His expression seemed to say, rather, I will think of you, but I no longer believe I can be saved by love.
Claire felt as if she knew him very well, but from a long time ago, and had somehow forgotten him until they were reunited this evening. That eerie feeling, combined with the miraculous beauty of the moon, seemed to lend this moment deep, significant meaning. Still, Claire resisted its pull.
“It was nice to meet you, Laurie,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you better,” he said. “I poured my heart out to you, so it’s the least you can do in return.”
“Just not too much,” she said. “We’ll keep some secrets.”
“It’s a deal,” he said, and let go of her hand.
Claire watched him walk away. When he reached the corner, he turned, looked up at the moon, and then back at her before he went on. Watching him go, Claire was filled with equal parts anticipation and dread. She felt as buzzed as if she had just downed several shots of tequila, but paradoxically, as alert and awake as if she’d just run a mile. It was a familiar feeling.
She went inside, and there in the front room, curled up on the couch together, were Mackie Pea and the new kitten. Claire could hardly believe it. Mackie Pea opened one eye, thumped her little stub tail, and then went back to sleep. The kitten did not even wake up.
Without turning on a light, Claire made her way to the kitchen, where just a few nights ago Ed Harrison had rocked her world with a kiss. Moonlight streamed into the kitchen, and to Claire’s fatigued mind it almost seemed as if it were seeking her out, compelling her to come back outside.
‘How can you sleep when I am this magnificent?’ the moon seemed to say.
This same moon, which had shone down through the pine trees in the terrifying moment when Jeremy’s gun went off, and had lit the romantic scene with Laurie, was obviously still not through with her.
“No more,” Claire said, shaking her head.
Later, as she lay in bed, she thought over the events of the day, from Maggie’s and Scott’s wedding, her confrontation with Anne Marie, getting the bride ready to go on her honeymoon, almost getting killed in Pine Mountain State Park, and then watching Laurie walk away from her in the moonlight. Taken all together these events signified a major turning point in her life, but toward what she couldn’t even imagine.
Her phone tweedled and it was the promised text from Laurie.
“Claire de Lune,” was all it said.
There was also a link to a video performance of the classical music piece by that name, which was written by the composer Debussy. Claire, who knew it well and loved it, smiled in the dark. She closed her eyes, and eventually fell asleep listening to the beautiful music.
Chapter Twelve - Sunday
Claire woke up early, remembered it was Sunday, flipped her
pillow to the cool side, and closed her eyes again. A little while later her mother came in and sat on the bed.
“Claire,” she said quietly.
“I’m awake,” Claire said.
She rolled over and her mother smoothed the hair back from her forehead.
“You did a wonderful job yesterday,” Delia said. “I’ve never seen a happier newlywed couple.”
“Have they left for the beach?”
“I don’t know when they’re leaving,” Delia said. “I brought you the paper.”
Claire sat up in bed and unfolded the Rose Hill Sentinel. Above the fold was the headline “Alleged vandal has political connections,” followed by the story of Jumbo’s arrest. Below the fold was the headline, “Former resident’s ministry under fire,” with the story about Anne Marie. Claire read each story, and then the coverage of the mayoral candidates’ speeches at the IWS meeting on page two.
“Poor Marigold,” she said to her mother, when she brought her a cup of coffee.
“Some of her friends may stand by her,” Delia said. “Stuart and Peg are probably pulling strings of support backstage.”
“I should go up to Kay’s,” Claire said. “I should do a lot of things, but mostly I just want to stay in bed all day.”
“You’re due for some down time,” Delia said. “Take a day off.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s at the station with Curtis,” she said. “Where did you and Sean run off to last night?”
Claire paused, and then the doorbell rang, saving her from either telling a long story that would worry her mother, or lying to her, which she hated to do.
“Claire,” her mother called out from the front room. “Ed’s here.”
Claire dragged herself out of bed and looked in the mirror. Well, Ed did say he preferred the real her. She put on a flannel robe over her T-shirt and yoga pants, wrapped her hair up on top of her head in a messy bun, and wiped the worst of the smeared mascara out from under her eyes.
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