Flirting With Pete: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  These thoughts simmered in her as she headed north on I-93. They gained heat as she drove northeast on Route 128 and were hot enough when she reached Gloucester for her to consider turning back. But she was out of options. And besides, she reasoned, if she lost her temper and let loose on Ruth, it was nothing Ruth didn’t deserve.

  Turning onto Route 127, she followed the curve of Cape Ann until she reached Rockport. She knew the way to Ruth’s house from the center of town. She had driven it before— oh, not all the way up from Boston just to see Ruth’s house, but she had driven past it four, maybe five times in the last dozen years, when she’d been in Rockport anyway, doing the tourist thing. Other than growing more gray from the blow of sea salt, the house hadn’t changed much.

  It sat at the end of a street with stubby grass and coastal shrubs, a Cape-style home with a large slate roof that slanted up and back from a conventional doorway flanked by windows. Casey parked in front and went up the stone walk. She rang the bell and waited, head down, wondering why in the world she had come, but she was too stubborn to leave.

  The door opened.

  Casey knew what Ruth looked like. She had seen her at Connie’s side during professional dinners, and, more recently, had seen her at the memorial service. On each of these occasions, Casey had thought her conventional looking for an artist. But conventional wasn’t the feeling Ruth conveyed now. For one thing, since last week, she had cut her hair from an ear-length bob to a short, feathery cap. What had been a mousy salt-and-pepper shade was now more salt-and-shiny, and what had been a tidy helmet was now windblown. A slim woman, several inches taller than Casey, she wore a soft pale blue shirt that flowed down over a tank top and shorts. Her feet were bare, her toenails orange.

  She looked… looked so much like what Casey imagined Caroline would have looked like in another ten years that her throat grew tight.

  Ruth seemed nearly as taken aback as Casey, but she was the first to recover, and in the most unexpected way. She broke into a bright smile that was filled with genuine warmth. “Casey. I’m so pleased.” She reached for Casey’s hand. “Come in.”

  Casey didn’t resist. Totally aside from Ruth’s appearance, the last thing she had expected was that Ruth would be pleased to see her. That unbalanced her at a time when she was still trying to deal with the knot in her throat, and then there was the house. Inside that Cape-style exterior was a veritable cavern of tall windows, skylights, and glass doors leading to a deck that offered no less than three different ocean views. Here was the artist’s home, with an easel, holding the work-in-progress, set up at one of the windows, and other canvases in various stages of completion propped around.

  “I’m so pleased,” Ruth repeated, still smiling.

  Gradually Casey got her bearings enough to realize that a small part of her was pleased, too. Ruth was one step removed from a relative, and she seemed genuinely happy to see Casey.

  But Casey couldn’t forget the history of this particular near-relative. So she asked a blunt, “Why?”

  Ruth’s smile faltered, but she remained warm. “Because you’re Connie’s daughter. Now that he’s gone, the sight of you does my heart good.”

  Casey was suddenly angry again. “Why now that he’s gone?”

  “Because I miss him.” Ruth’s smile was gone now, leaving kind features in a serious face. “And because this is long overdue. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while.”

  “Why have you waited?”

  Ruth hesitated, then said with care, “Because Connie did not want the contact made.”

  “Why not?” Casey asked. This was why she’d come.

  Ruth drew in a long breath. “It’s not a simple answer. Will you come sit on the deck?”

  Casey would have been perfectly happy getting her answers there by the door, then turning and leaving. But there was something about Ruth’s genuineness, and the brightness of her home, and the hope inherent in her art that spoke to Casey. So she let herself be led toward the deck through the living room, first past a large white sectional sofa that formed a U and was flanked by a stone coffee table bearing art books, elegant carvings, and large iron lamps, then past the easel and canvases.

  “Would you like a cold drink?” Ruth asked when they were on the deck.

  Casey shook her head. Grasping the railing, she faced the sea. The tide was out, leaving a foreground covered with seaweed-strewn rocks. Gulls called to each other as they dove, rose, coasted on air currents. The waves rolled, crashed, and receded in a soothing rhythm.

  Through no will of her own, Casey’s anger faded.

  Ruth came to stand at the railing not far from her side. She, too, looked out. “I was always an ocean person. Connie wasn’t. He liked things closer and more contained.”

  Casey turned her head. “Why?”

  Ruth met her gaze. “Security. He didn’t trust things that made him feel helpless.”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “You know the answer.”

  Casey certainly did. “Childhood, only I don’t know a thing about his. I don’t even know the name of the town where he grew up.”

  “Abbott.”

  “Not Little Falls?” Casey challenged.

  “I’ve never heard of a Little Falls. He came from Abbott.”

  Abbott. A name so long sought, that simply revealed.

  “It’s a small town in Maine,” Ruth explained, “though I can’t tell you much more than that. I never saw the place myself. When we were first married, I used to suggest taking a drive there, but he refused to go back. The years he spent there weren’t happy ones.”

  “Why not?”

  Ruth turned troubled eyes to the ocean. It was a long minute before she faced Casey again. “He was always such a private person— didn’t want anyone knowing about his past— but he’s gone, and you’re his flesh and blood. If anyone has reason to know, you do. It’s not like there was anything violent or perverted. I used to think there was,” she confessed. “I used to imagine some great big awful event that warped him forever.”

  So had Casey. “And there wasn’t?”

  “No. No single act of mayhem, just years of hurt. Connie was born puny and bright. Neither trait was appreciated in Abbott. He was the object of derision from the time he was the smallest child— ridiculed, taunted mercilessly, made the butt of jokes. He was withdrawing from people even before he started grade school, and with the pattern established, it became self-perpetuating.”

  Casey could easily make the transition from the child Ruth described to the man Connie had become. But there was the element of intervention. “What did his parents do?”

  “What could they do?”

  “Sell the farm.”

  Ruth smiled ruefully. “There was no farm. Not as you and I know it. If his mother grew vegetables or raised chickens, it was to put food on their own table. They lived close to the center of town in a very small house on a very small piece of land. I’m not even sure they owned it. Whatever, they couldn’t afford to move away. Money was short, and living in Abbott was cheap.”

  “Victimizing their child was about money?”

  “No,” Ruth said with care. “It was also about Connie’s father, Frank. Frank was a burly, physical type— everything Connie was not. He was convinced that if anything could ‘cure’ Connie of being a sissy, it was the macho culture of Abbott. Clearly, it didn’t work. Connie’s life was a misery. The only way he could survive was to put up walls.”

  “What about Connie’s mother? How could she stand by and watch that?”

  “Not easily, I think. She did have a soft spot for Connie, but she was first and foremost a docile wife. Her husband had firm beliefs, and she wouldn’t buck them— and who am I to criticize her for that? I haven’t done much different. We call it respecting our spouse’s wishes.”

  Casey didn’t think the situations were at all alike. “But Connie was a child. He was suffering. I can’t imagine being a mother and not doing anything to he
lp.”

  “She did help. Very quietly, she did what she could.”

  “Like what?”

  “Encouragement. The father didn’t know if Connie should go to college.”

  “Didn’t want him bettering himself?” Casey asked, dumbfounded.

  “Didn’t want him growing even more isolated from what his father considered to be normal, quote unquote, and healthy. When push came to shove, the man might have been okay with Connie’s going to U of Maine, because he worked there himself, but Harvard?” She shook her head. “That was Connie’s doing. And he didn’t do it alone. His mother was behind him, quiet and invisible, but pushing. He won a full scholarship, left Abbott, and never returned.”

  “Not even to see his parents?”

  “His father died right before he left, and his mother moved away. This was all a long, long time ago.”

  “But indelibly etched,” Casey said.

  “Yes. Connie never got over it. His personal life was ruled by fear of ridicule and rejection. So he enhanced his professional life. With each degree he earned, each paper he delivered, each book he wrote, he felt justified in distancing himself. His credentials grew into a shield.”

  Casey saw it clearly. “He became the professor who was so brilliant that his eccentricities were excused. And that, too, became self-perpetuating. The more it happened, the less accessible he was for personal relationships, and without personal relationships, he wasn’t open to hurt.” Only there was a big piece of the picture missing. “How in the world did he ever come to be with my mother?”

  Ruth smiled sadly. “The same way he came to be with me. Hope dies hard. He always desired acceptance. He dreamed of love.”

  “Don’t we all?” Casey countered. “But the rest of us can at least carry on a personal discussion with a friend. Not Connie. Yet he had an affair with my mother. So, how did he get past his fear of rejection?”

  “He ended the relationship before he could be rejected— at least, that was the case with your mother. In my case, he ended the intimacy. Just withdrew into himself. Or maybe,” she said more introspectively, “he was that way all along, only I thought it would be different once we were married. I thought he was just old-fashioned, waiting until marriage to share his deepest, darkest thoughts.”

  “You thought you could change him.”

  “No,” Ruth corrected patiently. “I thought he was different.” She grew introspective again. “But the times were different, too. Back then, we met, dated a little while, decided to get married, and just did it. We made the decision as much on practical matters as love. When I met Connie, he was already a well-respected professor, already published many times over. Yes, he was painfully shy, but I found that endearing. More important, he offered me a financial stability that I wanted.” She smiled. “I wanted to paint, but I didn’t want to starve while I did it. Also, quite honestly, I didn’t want to be bothered while I painted, so the fact that Connie had his own busy professional life appealed to me.”

  “And love?”

  “I loved Connie. The more I learned about him, the more I loved him.” She held up a hand. “Yes, I know that sounds strange, but don’t you see? Connie was a victim of a childhood that scarred him badly.”

  “Did he never have therapy for that?”

  Ruth shook her head. “An irony, isn’t it? He’s the doctor who can’t hear of being a patient. Had he been a psychiatrist, he might have been forced to have therapy. But it wasn’t required for his degree, and he didn’t seek it out on his own.”

  “It was too threatening.”

  “Far too threatening. I used to suggest it. Way back, when I didn’t know whether to divorce him or just move out, I told him he needed it. I told him he was missing out on good things in life. I offered to see a therapist with him.” She gave a quick headshake. “Far too threatening. So I did move out— and, lo and behold, our relationship improved.”

  “Connie was less threatened.”

  “In fairness, I was better, too. My expectations changed. As soon as I accepted him for what he could and could not do, I was fine.”

  “But… living apart from your husband all these years?”

  Ruth smiled. “I have friends. I have not been lonely. Besides, you may be too young to understand this, but there are scores of women who would find separate living an ideal situation. I got the best of my husband, along with all the freedom in the world.”

  “But no kids,” Casey pointed out.

  Ruth eyed her directly. “I can’t have kids. I knew that before I was married.”

  Casey felt instant remorse. “I’m sorry.”

  “Things happen for the best. I’ve had a rich life. I sometimes fantasize about having had a daughter, but we might as easily have been at each other’s throats as not. I have nieces and nephews, and now grands of each.”

  That raised another issue. “In the townhouse, the spare bedrooms upstairs?” Casey asked. “What’s their purpose?”

  Ruth smiled gently, said quietly, “Dreams. Connie did dream of lots of things. You might not believe this, but many of those dreams revolved around you.”

  A flash of anger returned. “Why couldn’t he pick up the phone?” Casey cried, and in the next breath answered herself. “Fear. Fear of rejection.”

  “Fear of failure.”

  Casey suffered from that herself, but she had never guessed it of Connie. “Failure?”

  “Fear that he’d be a lousy father. He might not have had therapy, but he did know his limitations.”

  “And he couldn’t get past them?” Casey asked in a last-ditch attempt at criticism— because her heart had indeed softened. It had softened toward Ruth, who was no longer just a name and a face, but had become very real, very sympathetic, even likable. And it had softened toward Connie.

  “No. He couldn’t get past them.”

  “But he knew about me. He knew where I was and what I was doing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he care?”

  “He left you the townhouse. He loved that place, truly loved it. He could have had it sold and given the proceeds to charity, but he gave it to you. So you tell me. Did he care?”

  Casey couldn’t answer. Her throat was too tight.

  Ruth rescued her. “He cared. Believe me. He cared. Connie had feelings just like you and I do. He just expressed them differently. In my case, it was calling me at six in the evening, every single day that we weren’t together, to make sure that I was all right. In your case, it was decorating the townhouse in a way he thought you might like. Yes, he did that. In your mother’s case, it’s the flowers.”

  “Flowers?”

  “He has fresh ones delivered to her room every week.”

  “No,” Casey said. “The nursing home does that.”

  Slowly, conclusively, Ruth shook her head. And suddenly it made sense. Casey had never seen flowers in the rooms of other long-term patients. Nor would the nurses be remarking on the flowers, as they so often did, if flowers were just another part of the package. Casey had just assumed…

  *

  Casey had hit a jackpot in her scavenger hunt for learning who Connie was, yet she left Rockport feeling deflated. In learning so much, she had given up a lot. How to be angry at Ruth? She wasn’t the enemy. How even to be angry at Connie? He was a victim in his own right.

  But Casey needed an enemy. She needed someone to blame for Connie being Connie, for Caroline being unresponsive, for the call earlier that morning, wondering if she had made a decision about the teaching position in Providence— which she had not, she explained, and begged for more time. A definite answer by Monday? Yes, she could do that.

  No enemy there. The department had to offer the job to another therapist if Casey turned it down. They were under pressure, too. She couldn’t find fault with them.

  Who, then, to blame for the ills of the world? Darden Clyde was a fair candidate, and she did have a lead. Abbott, Maine. It might not be Little Falls, but it was a place to s
tart. She planned to do that first thing in the morning.

  More immediately, though, there was Jordan. She could be angry at Jordan. He hadn’t been in the garden that morning, though it was Friday and he was due. She had done an extra-long yoga routine just in case, but no Jordan, and that worried her. He might have come while she was in Rockport; she knew instinctively that he wouldn’t neglect the garden. But she was not the garden. She was a thinking, feeling human being with whom he was doing some very intimate things. Yet he hadn’t shown up Thursday night— hadn’t come by, hadn’t called, hadn’t held her.

  Of course, he had no obligation to do any of those things. They weren’t really friends. She could barely call them lovers. Those very intimate things they did together? Sex. That was all it was. Sex. She knew next to nothing about him.

  Suddenly that felt wrong. So she drove straight back to the townhouse, feeling anticipation the closer she got. She was trying to decide whether the anticipation had to do with seeing Jordan or coming home— an amazing thought, that one— when she pulled down the back alley into view of the parking space behind the garden. Jordan’s Jeep wasn’t there.

  Disappointed, she took a quick look inside the garden, just in case— and there was definitely a sense of the familiar now. Unable to resist, she went inside and stood in the woodsy part. If she moved in close to the hemlocks so that she saw nothing but green fronds, and if she then inhaled, she might well have been in the midst of a forest; the sensory effect was the same. Nature was a potent drug. God as clinician, she thought with a smile. Divine aromatherapy.

  Feeling calmer, she set off on foot for Daisy’s Mum, heading for the address that had been printed on the receipts for the checks Connie had written. It was an easy walk past brownstones, lindens, and window-box geraniums, down West Cedar to Revere, then down Revere to the tiny side street just shy of Charles. The store was the only one amid a handful of townhouses, but, even aside from the customers who browsed on the sidewalk, there was no missing it. A long awning stretched over its front windows and doors; it was striped, burgundy and white to complement the brick of the neighboring townhouses, but the crowd of plants that lay under the awning put those townhouses’ window boxes to shame. The plants in front, bathed in sun, offered a profusion of flowers in bright yellows, whites, purples, and blues. A handful of other flowering plants hung in the shade of the awning, along with dozens of green plants.