“I was hoping you’d come with me. Are we still on for tonight?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll defrost some leftover pork chops and open up a can of sauerkraut.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll see what my friends are doing. See you later, okay?”
He pecked her on the lips, not giving her a chance to start anything. When the door closed, he stood alone in his kitchen. The sauerkraut ploy had worked, but now silence settled over him like a cold blanket. He started the dishwasher, and its familiar swishing and humming helped restore a sense of normalcy. He straightened the living room and cleaned out the fireplace, brushing the ashes into the metal bucket.
He knew Maddie was too young for him, but over the years he’d dated plenty of local women his age, and none compelled him. He sank into the couch cushions and stared at the fireplace. It stared back, implacable.
He rolled his head around on his neck, releasing the tension. Soon, he’d travel to Spain for a short visit. The administration wanted to meet with him and talk about what to expect when he arrived later in the summer. He needed to get things ready for the year ahead, and once there, he’d probably look up Isabel. They’d had fun that last time. Sure, she smoked, and she was loud, and she was a night owl, but she was closer to his age. Well, forty, maybe. Maybe they could pick up where they left off, once he settled in Barcelona.
The idea didn’t excite him.
He glanced at the clock. Marie would be home from church by now, and he’d promised to stop by. He wished he could climb on his Harley and tear around the flatlands for a couple of hours, but the weather wasn’t good for it, and besides, he’d promised to bring her some jam.
CURT TUCKED HIS SUNGLASSES in his breast pocket and limped down the sidewalk toward Aunt Marie’s front door. After a cold night of rain and sleet, the skies had cleared, and the sun reflected blindingly from every surface. Moisture dripped from the eaves, from the ancient branches of the tall spruce, and from the holly bushes next to the house.
Standing on her porch, holding the screen door open, Aunt Marie waited, a quiet smile on her pale, lined face. He followed her through the door, the floor squeaking beneath his feet. Inside, the air was thick with the aroma of baking. “I made a coffee cake this morning. I’ll cut you some.”
“Just a small piece.” He handed her a couple jars of his renowned chokecherry jam and sat down at her kitchen table, wincing.
“You have a hitch in your git-along.”
“Comes and goes.” Curt pointed at the purple bruise on Aunt Marie’s elbow. “What happened to you?”
“It’s nothing.”
He savored the warm cake, melted through with brown-sugar crumble. “How are you managing these days? Everything good?”
“As much as can be expected,” she said. “What about that limp of yours?”
“Too much fieldwork.”
“In January?”
When he didn’t answer, Aunt Marie shrugged. “In my case, it was ice on the sidewalk. It’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last.” She looked down at her table and found a chip in the Formica to worry with her fingertip. Her nails were neatly filed, and her knobby joints reflected her age.
“Marie.”
“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” She looked up, smiling.
The childhood taunt made him laugh. “Do you need me to do anything around here?”
“Like what?”
He looked around the kitchen. “I’m pretty good at replacing lightbulbs.”
“I can do that myself.”
“You need a new roof. I can find a contractor for you.”
“I’ll wait until Karen comes back.”
“You sure she is?”
“I believe so,” said Aunt Marie. “It gets hot in Florida.”
He carried their empty plates to the sink and rinsed them.
Aunt Marie said, “I told her if she didn’t, I’d get distracted and maybe fall or something. I laid it on pretty thick. You know how stubborn she is.”
“Yeah.” He dried his hands.
“To tell the truth, it is getting harder.” Aunt Marie held out her coffee cup, and Curt filled it. “Lorraine and Jim have been hounding me enough that I guess I’ll move into their cottage.”
“That’s smart. You’ll be a stone’s throw from each other.”
Marie’s gaze lingered about the kitchen. “This house is all I have left of Lena. Everybody’s dying.”
“You seem to work through it, though,” he said. “You’re always busy.”
“People stay busy out of desperation. Anyway, I’m slowing down. I’m not so busy anymore, because there’s less and less I can do. My fingers don’t work as well, and I can’t see. I’ve got a big magnification light where I sew, but aside from that, it’s a chore. I already decided I wasn’t going to put in a garden this year. I’m too darned old to be getting down on my knees to pull weeds.”
“I can build you a container garden on the porch of the new place. I’m good with drip lines.”
“That would be appreciated. Then I could work outside from a chair. No more crawling around in the dirt,” she said.
“All right.” He rubbed his aching leg. “Did you tell Karen you’re moving?”
“She didn’t want to hear it.”
“Typical.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Call me when you’re ready to move, and I’ll come over with some guys and help.”
That evening, Curt fried a hamburger for dinner, but it didn’t have much flavor, so he threw half of it in the garbage. Then he poured himself a drink, bundled up, and went outside to sit on the porch in the dark and cold. Christmas lights still adorned a neighboring ranch house. In the distance, a cow mooed. Curt took a sip of bourbon and flirted with the idea of lighting the cigar, but the thought reminded him of Madison, and he let it be.
The temperature suited his mood. He watched his breath fog out in the frigid air. Did Karen know what was going on with her aunt? While she worked her ass off, did she even see it? Deny it all you want—nobody lived forever. Yet she was out there in Florida, running around trying to start a new business like she was still a kid. He thought about answering her texts—she’d sent a lot of them lately, but they were chatty and superficial little blurbs like, “How are you?” and “How’s everything in ND?” Nothing that made him feel like it mattered if he responded.
Eventually, the cold was too much. Curt eased his gimpy leg around and levered himself up. He went inside and lit the fire, wondering why he was still here. Erin had already told him she would remain in Davis after graduation. Aunt Marie was in good hands. There were plenty of people standing in line to take over his professorship. When he got back from his year in Barcelona, he could retire. Do a little contract work, enough to write off travel expenses.
He stood warming his backside against the flames, a glass of whiskey in his hand. The fling with Maddie had been fun, and educational, too, because now he remembered why he liked being in his fifties, and it didn’t have anything to do with racquetball or late-night barhopping. He was happy with his quiet life, living on his family’s land in the farmhouse he’d grown up in. North Dakota was home. He loved it, loved the openness and the wind and the rolling fields, the deep rich smell of turned soil and the fragrance of rain on the dry earth. The warmth of the people who made their lives here. As long as he could get away once in a while, his little farm was as close to perfect as a place could be.
And as much as he hated to admit it, he was growing old. It didn’t scare him, but there were ups and downs to that reality. For the most part, he was satisfied with the way his life had gone, and he was ready for new adventures. He looked forward to experiencing Spain, but there was only one woman he wanted to enjoy it with.
But she didn’t want him.
CHAPTER 28
JESSIE BIT A THREAD and held up the floaty summer dress, a castoff from the back of Gina’s closet. A week ago, when she’d delivered her updated jacket, the o
ld lady was so jazzed she went through her whole wardrobe looking for other things to rehab. Jessie went back to the RV with her arms full of work, but Gina also gave her the dress, a couple of blouses, and a coat. Jessie would fix those up and sell them.
She clipped a couple of leftover threads from the dress, a gauzy pastel that would be perfect for evening cocktails. After narrowing the back with a couple of strategically placed darts and adding decorative stitching at the neckline, the dress was ready to be sold on Jessie’s new website. This afternoon when the light was right, she’d get Doc to come down to the beach with her fancy camera. The first time they did a photo shoot, Patti had arranged a couple of Adirondack chairs, their white paint peeling to bare wood, at the waterline. Lit by the rose-colored hues of the setting sun, Doc captured the flowing lines of a floor-length swimsuit cover-up that Jessie enhanced with spaghetti straps and buttons shaped like Japanese fighting fish. When she’d sold it for sixty-five bucks, her business was launched. After that, the three of them partnered on all the photography. Jessie wanted to give them a cut, but Doc shook her head. “I enjoy it, and it’s good practice.”
“Like you need it,” Patti said. “She’ll never tell you this, but she’s won awards. Her work is in galleries.”
“Come on.” Doc pulled her field hat low over her eyes.
Jessie laughed. She’d never seen Doc blush before.
When Sunshine awoke, Jessie changed and fed her and then pushed the stroller through the campground, stopping to say hello to people. At the clubhouse, she found the CRS ladies working on crafts. Fern was whittling, Belle had a coloring book and several dozen specialty pens and pencils, and Patti was building a bird feeder made of empty tuna cans. Margo and Candace had a quilt spread between them, stitching from opposite ends.
Jessie left Sunshine with them and ran back to the RV for a blouse, her next project. At first, she’d had to borrow sewing notions from the ladies, but after her first two sales, she could afford her own, which she kept in a shoe box.
When she returned, Belle was holding Sunshine, who basked in the attention. Jessie sat down and got to work, as happy as she could remember being. She’d never had the company of a circle of women like this. They were funny and generous, and every day the age difference seemed less and less important. She settled in, repairing a cuff that had begun to unravel.
The clubhouse door opened, and Rita, the trucker, came in. She went around the group, complimenting the various projects. Then she leaned down near Jessie. “Can we talk, outside, privately?” she said in a low voice. The other women kept their eyes on their projects.
“Sure.” Jessie laid her sewing on the chair and followed Rita out. They sat on a bench under a shady clump of palm trees. “What’s up?”
Rita sat up straight, hands on her knees, perched on the edge of the bench. “There’s something I need to say to you.” She looked away from Jessie, and her jaw muscle twitched. “Back when I was working, I was assigned to a county court school, you know, where they teach kids in juvie.”
“Okay.”
Rita cleared her throat. “I taught English and creative writing for ten years at this facility, and I never felt like I was in danger. They were just kids. Troubled, but still forming, and I wanted to help them find a better path.”
“Good for you. Teachers can change a kid’s life for the better,” Jessie said. A breeze rustled the palm fronds overhead.
“So they say. Anyway, it was a tough environment. I knew some defense moves. The faculty were all trained and aware of how to protect ourselves, so I was careful, but you can’t think of self-defense twenty-four seven. Day in and day out, it was just teaching. I guess you let your guard down. It’s natural.
“But then we got this new kid. Well, not a kid. He was, like, six feet; I’d guess two-twenty. He was like a man. And he used to look at me.”
Jessie felt ill at ease. Rita had to be fifty, at least, yet she seemed so vulnerable right now.
“One day he followed me into the ladies’ room. I guess I wasn’t paying attention, and he trapped me there. Even before I could scream, he broke my nose and then shoved me face first into the sinks and raped me from behind.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Rita still looked straight ahead.
“I’m so sorry,” Jessie repeated. She struggled to know what to say. The two of them sat quietly for a few moments.
Rita cleared her throat again. “I was a mess for a couple years. Finally my brother, Ernesto, taught me to drive his truck, and then I bought my own. Now I’m a long-haul trucker. I go all across the country. I have a sleeper, like a little RV, with a kitchen and everything. It’s my home.”
“And you’re okay now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Jessie reached over to give Rita a tentative pat on the forearm.
“I was suicidal, a nutcase, for years. It shouldn’t have happened. I should have known better.” Rita hunched her shoulders, her arms propped on her knees. “So I’m asking you to think long and hard before you go back to him.”
“Why would—”
Rita whirled on her. “It’s not worth it, Jessie. And the baby...Jesus Christ.”
Jessie let out a breath. The ladies must all be talking about her going back to Lenny. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, but she had considered it, because she needed a place to live for a couple of years. If only she knew this thing with Lenny was an aberration. If only she could see the future. She turned to Rita, a fake smile on her face. “Don’t worry.”
“I will be worrying. I have to leave tomorrow. I’ll be back on the road when you do whatever you’re going to do, and I won’t be able to help.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Promise you won’t go back to him.”
Jessie stared at her hands.
“Fine.” Rita jumped up and stalked away, not even going back into the clubhouse. When Jessie stood up, she was shaking.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Belle.
Jessie took Sunshine and buried her face in the baby’s neck.
CHAPTER 29
ON MONDAY MORNING, Karen was reading the New York Times on her laptop while she ate breakfast. Messages kept popping up in the lower corner of the screen. Peggy wanted her to return to California to interview with a board of directors, Ursula had another project, and a couple of Ben’s supervisors needed to meet with her. She told Ben’s people that she’d be in Savannah in a few hours and would see them then. She showered and dressed, loaded her small suitcase into her truck, and headed for the big city.
At Savannah Health Solutions, she waved at the receptionist and stuck her head into Ben’s office to say hello. At her own temporary cubicle, Karen unpacked her briefcase and lined up her files. A voice boomed down the hall, and she feared it was Ted. They hadn’t spoken since she’d torn up his check and ran off with the diamond earrings.
But it was only a supervisor arriving for his meeting with Karen. The hours rolled by in a sequence of employees and note-taking as she learned more about the operations of SHS.
By noontime, she was famished. She grabbed her purse and walked with Ben a couple of blocks north to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city. In the shade of umbrellas, they ate and talked shop, with Ben excited about another project he wanted Karen to take on.
“I was talking with Diane a couple days ago. She’s looking to expand. She needs my help, and it would be a great opportunity for you.” Ben bit into a shrimp po’boy. “You’ve got her contact info, right?”
Karen nodded. Diane Florentine, one of the investors she had pitched, ran a caregiver agency with franchises all over the state of Georgia. On one hand, it was a great lead. On the other, the work would soon be too much. Karen would either have to start hiring help or declining business. The HR app seemed dead in the water. She couldn’t figure out where to go next with it.
“You could open an office here in Savannah.” Ben was a realist. He could s
ee what she was mulling over.
“It’s tempting.”
“You’d love it here. There’s plenty to do. The people are great. You could put down new roots.” He looked past her and grinned. “Hey, look who’s here.”
Karen was reaching for her glass of sweet tea when a couple of strong hands gripped her shoulders from behind. She froze.
Ted pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “Heard you were here. Thought I’d come up and say hi.” He turned to Karen with a smile. “Hello, Gorgeous.”
“Hello, Ted.” Karen flushed, remembering the things they’d done to each other in the candlelit darkness of his rooftop penthouse.
Ben said, “I thought you were in Hong Kong.”
“Got back last night. Met with the guy who started Chinese Facebook. He wants to partner on some stuff with us.” Ted ran a hand over his mustache, smoothing it. “So, you freezing me out or what?”
“I’m sorry?” Karen said.
“You must be mad at me. You never called.”
“Ted.” She narrowed her eyes in warning.
He peered at her. “How come you’re not wearing my earrings?”
Ben grinned. “You two need some privacy?”
“Excuse me.” She folded her cloth napkin, exited the dining area, and disappeared around the kitchen area. A discreet walkway took her to the far end of the rooftop, well out of sight of the restaurant. There she found seclusion, and the chance to gather her thoughts.
Of course she had expected to have to face him again. She’d assumed he would pretend nothing happened, and her shame would be internal and private. Instead, true to form, Ted was having his fun, announcing her humiliation to anyone within earshot. In this case, going so far as to take over a business conversation with her client.
And Ben, laughing, as if he were delighted.
She stood straighter and took a deep breath. She would go back to the table and explain she had an urgent phone call and would see them both later. Karen straightened her jacket and reminded herself she was a grown woman. Hopefully, by the time she returned to the table, Ted would have ridden his high horse out of there, but if he hadn’t, she would be polite and cool.
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