Passing Through Paradise

by Susan Wiggs

  Sometimes he wanted to hold them and touch them, smell their hair when they laid their heads next to his as he read to them at bedtime. Sometimes he wanted to feel their warmth so bad he ached.

  “So anything else new and exciting in your life?” he asked.

  “Guess not. If I think of something, I’ll call you back. What’re you doing, Dad?”

  Mike stared down at his bare feet, rubbed his hand over the damp hair on his chest. “Just got out of the shower. I was going to open a can of tuna and do the book-keeping on my computer.”

  “Bo-ring.”

  No shit, thought Mike. He’d give anything to spend the evening with his family, even if it was sitting around watching TV. Each day, it became clearer to him—he wasn’t cut out for living alone.

  “What’s your sister up to?”

  “Just a second, I’ll put her on. Mary Margaret, pickup!” he hollered without bothering to hold the receiver away from his mouth. Mike winced, hearing a clunk, then a bobble as his daughter picked up an extension.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hi, sweetheart. Did you see the talent show, too?”

  “Yeah. It was okay until that kid threw up.”

  “Kevin thought it was the best part.”

  “He would. Trust me, you didn’t miss anything.”

  “I miss you, kiddo.”

  “Me, too.” A smile softened her voice. “I got my dress, Dad. The one for the Valentine’s dance.”

  In the background, Kevin made a gagging noise.

  “Bug off, punk!” Mary Margaret yelled at him.

  Mike held the phone away from his ear for a second. He heard footsteps as Mary Margaret carried the cordless phone to a more private place. He pictured her hunkering down in her favorite nook on the upstairs landing, holding the phone in one hand and twirling a lock of hair around her finger. His shy, pretty daughter, growing up so fast. “I bet it’s a real nice dress,” he said.

  “It’s pale green and has these really sheer sleeves. Mom and I went to Filene’s, and she let me get shoes to match.”

  “Can’t wait to see it,” he said. Angela had always been a world-class shopper—he was still paying off her credit card debts. He didn’t doubt the dress was great. “Hey, are you reading those books we got from the library?”

  “I finished one, and I’m halfway through the other. They’re awesome.”

  Mike thought so, too. He’d bought one the other day, curious about Sandra’s work. The one he’d read was the story of a shy girl, thrown into impossible circumstances, who was forced to be brave and strong, and who rebelled in the end. Art imitating life? he wondered.

  “I have to go, Dad. I promised I’d shoot baskets with Kevin and Carmine. He put floodlights in the driveway.”

  “Great.” Resentment twisted inside Mike as he pictured the 1847 carriage house blazing with lights on aluminum posts. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Love you, Dad.”

  “Love you, honey.”

  As he hung up, he tried to steady his nerves. Outside, the weather was kicking up, shoving at the boat. He told himself he should be getting used to the idea that some other guy lived in his house, slept with his ex-wife, played with his kids and tucked them in each night. There were a million single dads around these days, he told himself. Guys put up with this all the time.

  But Mike couldn’t seem to get used to it, no matter how much time passed.

  To keep himself company while he got dressed, Mike flicked on the small black-and-white TV. Courtney Procter sat at the news desk looking cool and competent, buffed to a plastic sheen. Mike thought about her producer’s proposition to him, turned the thing off and flipped on the radio instead, to a song by Aimee Mann.

  A second later, he heard footsteps on the deck above. Zeke leaped into action, hurling himself at the glass saloon door. It was dark already, and the blinds were drawn. He slid open the door, feeling a rush of cold wind on his bare chest and legs. There, in the yellowish glow of the harbor lights, stood Sandra Winslow.

  His reaction to the sight of her was instant and unrehearsed. Holding the towel around his waist, he grinned despite the raw wind streaming in through the open door. “Hey, stranger.”

  “You . . .” She paused, her mouth twisted, and then she spoke more loudly. “You can say that again.” She didn’t seem to notice he was practically naked, or that the dog went into a dance of joy at her feet. Without waiting to be invited, she grasped the rail and climbed aboard. She was wearing jeans—he’d always liked a woman in jeans—gloves that didn’t match and an oversized parka.

  “Say what again?” he asked, distracted by the shape of her thigh as she stepped into the saloon. He turned down the radio.

  “Stranger. I thought we were getting over the ‘stranger’ stage, but apparently that was a little one-sided of me.” The blustering storm slapped at the hull, and she steadied herself by clutching a handrail. Zeke gave up vying for attention and flopped down on his cushion.

  “You’ll have to explain.” The wind shivered through the main saloon. It was a terrible night, with the promise of a storm heavy in the air, the wind whistling through the halyards, and Mike hurried to slide the door shut. “Just a second. I need to put something on before I freeze my n—before I freeze.” He ducked into the stateroom and yanked on a pair of gray sweats. Pulling an old URI Rams sweatshirt over his head, he went back to the saloon. She was here. Sandra was here. He couldn’t get over it.

  What did she want? he wondered, haphazardly scrubbing his hair dry with the towel. A loud creak sounded as the boat strained at its moorings. What the hell was she doing on his boat, in his life? Neither of them was in a position to start anything. Neither wanted to feel the heat that stung the air around them each time they were together, but like the gale brewing outside, it couldn’t be altered or ignored. Mike figured he’d have to ride it out, and hope it would blow over soon.

  “Welcome aboard the Fat Chance,” he said. “How’d you find me?”

  “Your name and slip number are on the mailbox, and the marina gate wasn’t locked.” She stood in the middle of the room and looked around. Mike felt her gaze assessing the place—business files crammed into every available shelf, navigation equipment and computer, pictures of the kids hanging crooked, Kevin’s artwork and Mary Margaret’s A papers adorning the little galley fridge. Though Sandra said nothing, he felt defensive. This is my life, he thought, and wondered what she was thinking, seeing it for the first time.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you used to be best friends with Victor?”

  Whoa. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Sparky said something.” It wasn’t a question.

  “She didn’t realize you were hiding it from me.”

  “Shoot, Sandra, I wasn’t hiding anything. The fact that I used to know Victor . . . that’s ancient history. I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “Everything matters now. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”

  “All right, I should have said something. I don’t know what, though. We knew each other as kids, but after high school, we lost touch. I bet Victor never mentioned me.”

  “No, but—”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “It was a lie. Okay, maybe a lie of omission, but why would you keep it from me?”

  “Because I never know what the hell you’re going to do,” he snapped, surprising them both with a lash of temper. “Face it, Sandy, you’re not the world’s most predictable person. One minute you’re in my face, arguing about paint color, and the next you’re teaching me to dance. I didn’t know if talking about Victor would make you laugh or cry.”

  A stricken look leached the color from her face.

  “Sandra,” he said, softening his voice. “Sit down.”

  She cast him a narrow-eyed glance, then yanked off her jacket and sat down. “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  His reasons were many and complex. And at the mom
ent, not a single one of them made sense. “I ‘m not in the habit of sharing personal information with the people who contract for my services.” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Look, you don’t tell your editors and publishing people about your personal life, do you?”

  “What about after we started. . . whatever it was we’re—we started?” Her voice shook, and he sensed the same fury he’d seen in her the first day they’d met. “Not that it matters now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was just beginning to trust you. I’ll never learn.”

  Her words hit him like a slap to the face. A cold, hard feeling twisted in his gut as he realized her trust was important to him. “Look, I never meant—at first I never gave it much thought. In a small town, people’s paths cross. And then after a while, bringing it up seemed awkward.” And it raised questions for him, too, but he didn’t mention that.

  “Well, I’ve brought it up now.”

  “What is it you need to hear? That I’m sorry? That I should have told you my life story before fixing your house?” He studied the glow of her skin in the dim light, the way her bottom lip gleamed with moisture. Outside, the storm hurled itself in from the North Atlantic. “It’s not like you’ve been a font of information about yourself, either.”

  Her accusatory stare burned into him. “Don’t try that on me, Malloy. It won’t work.”

  “Fine,” he said. “What can I tell you? We met as little kids. Third grade, I think. You know how friendships are. Kids just sort of fall into them, and then it becomes a habit to hang out.”

  “You did more than hang out. I read what you wrote in his senior yearbook. The two of you were best friends.”

  “Are you still in touch with your best friend from high school?”

  She laughed without humor. “What makes you think I had one?”

  “Everybody does.”

  “Right. So go on. You and Victor.”

  He hadn’t touched the memories in a long time, and in his mind, they took on a peculiar glow of nostalgia. He could remember the laughter, the sea air, the racing around, the feeling that everything in the world was right.

  “It’s like I told you. We were kids. We lost touch.”

  “I came here for answers, Malloy, but you haven’t told me anything yet.”

  “It’s been years, Sandra. In all that time, I never saw him, never spoke to him. He didn’t get in touch with me, either.”

  She pressed the palms of her hands on the table. He’d never seen a wedding ring on her delicate, ink-smudged hands, and now he wondered why. A widow in mourning wore her husband’s ring for years after he was gone, didn’t she? What keepsakes did Sandra cherish on empty nights—Victor’s Eric Clapton recordings?

  “I grew up here. I know most of the people in Paradise. I would have told you about Victor and me, but . . . ” He paused. “To be honest, I’m a lot more interested in you. I figure that should be obvious by now.”

  “Nothing is obvious to me,” she said. “Ever.”

  Watching her, he could see her anger running out of steam, and felt a deep relief at the prospect. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t want to bring up the fact that I once knew Victor. I thought any reminders of the past would make you sad.”

  “Is that what you thought? That your past with Victor would make me sad? You’re so wrong. He was only mine for a few years. You knew him much longer than I did.” She seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Her throat worked silently; then at last she said, “I wish you’d tell me more. Everything. All your memories of him, good and bad.”

  All right, he thought. She needed this. The missing past was something he could give her, though it wasn’t much. Still, he couldn’t help wondering—was it Victor she wanted to hear about, or Mike? “He was an only child and I had three older sisters. So we spent a lot of time together—we had a teacher who called us Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. We grew up running all over the place, riding bikes, hanging out at the beach every summer, the sledding hill or the skating pond in winter.”

  “What was he like as a boy?”

  “He was a regular kid, I suppose. Smart, funny, good-looking. Everybody liked him—other kids, teachers, adults. And he liked everyone, too.” Turning on the bench, Mike opened a sliding side cabinet and found one of the few framed photos he’d kept when he moved out of the house.

  “This was taken at First Beach in Newport one sum mer.” He handed it to her across the table. “We’d just won the Junior Cup.”

  She studied the picture, its imperfect colors faded by the years. It showed the two of them aboard a small sail-boat. He still remembered the heat of the sun on his face and the heady feeling of triumph surging through him as their boat cleared the final buoys. In the photo, he and Victor were shirtless, wearing matching surfer shorts Mrs. Winslow had bought for them. They stood with their skinny chests puffed out, holding the shiny trophy between them, their free arms cocked up to show off stringy biceps. Both were grinning in the way boys did, heedless of vanity, pride radiating from every inch of them. Mike was bigger, his eyes very blue in his tanned face. Victor’s hair was summer gold, his lean face bright with freckles.

  Seeing the picture brought back a rush of sweetness Mike hadn’t felt in a long, long time. The uncomplicated joys of a sunny summer afternoon, a winner’s trophy and a best friend had filled his world back then.

  “Malloy,” Sandra said, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you thinking?”

  “I guess I’m thinking about the kids in the picture. Look at us—happy as clams.”

  “Why do people assume clams are happy? I’ve never understood that.”

  “It’s just an expression. We were ignorant, closed up tight. Neither of us could have known what life had in store for us. Which was probably for the best. If people knew what the future held, they’d never keep going. You don’t tell a kid, ‘You’re headed for a lousy marriage’ or ‘You’re going to die before you’re forty.’ What would be the point of knowing?”

  He caught her stricken expression. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”

  She traced her thumb over the old image of Victor. “His mother has a copy of this picture. It ran in the local paper, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t realize the other boy was you, though. You were both so . . . beautiful.” She handed it back to him, and her eyes were dangerously bright.

  Don’t cry, Mike wanted to beg her.

  “Tell me more about these boys,” she said.

  “How much more?”

  “Tell me everything.”

  Mike drummed his fingers on the table. “How long do you have?”

  She paused, then said, “All night.”

  “I don’t have any great revelations for you. We were just. . . two kids who were friends. Pretty boring.”

  “How can that be boring?” She smiled slightly.

  “What’s funny?” he asked, relieved but trying not to show it. At least she didn’t seem to be angry, or on the verge of tears anymore.

  “That’s pretty much what all my books are about. Two kids who are friends. Maybe that’s why they don’t sell too well. Boring.”

  “A good writer can make white paint interesting. But I’m no writer.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table. “Come on, Malloy. I need this. I need to know what Victor was like.”

  “You were married to the guy.”

  “You were married, too. Can you ever really say you knew your wife?”

  The waves heaved against the hull with a hollow thumping sound. He thought about Angela, and the first time he’d brought her aboard the boat. She’d spent most of the time out on deck, working on her tan and admiring the yachts headed toward Newport’s Commercial Wharf. Even then, there were things about her he hadn’t wanted to know or acknowledge.

  “Maybe not,” he admitted. “Things are a lot simpler for kids. Victor and I—the two of us seemed to fit. You wouldn’t think so at first. He was rich, I was poor.
He made good grades, I didn’t. He had someone watching his every move and planning his every step. Nobody watched what I was doing, and that was fine with me. Still, we clicked. We went on campouts, hikes, all the stuff kids do. We built forts out of driftwood and had a hideout in an old boathouse on the south shore. We had an old dinghy we used to take on pirate raids—I bet it’s still there.”

  He wondered if Victor had told her anything about Brice Hall. The year they’d started high school, Vic’s parents sent him away to the boarding school attended by every Winslow male for the past umpteen generations. Six weeks later, Victor had shown up at Mike’s house—he’d flunked out and hitchhiked to Paradise, and was afraid to go home in defeat to his parents. With rare understanding, Mike’s dad counseled Victor to go home, convince his folks that he’d be better off in public school. Victor had done just that, and more. To make up for their disappointment in him, he became the best and the brightest at everything, and Brice Hall was forgotten. But for some reason, Mike remembered it now—and decided not to bring it up with Sandra.

  “In high school, Victor joined everything—student council, debate team, sports, that sort of thing.”

  “And you?” she asked, watching him with a disconcerting stare. “What were you into?”

  “Girls and cars.”

  He sent her a self-deprecating grin, but she didn’t smile back. “Victor was the big planner, and I was doing well if I managed to find two matching socks. It was almost eerie, the way he figured out what he wanted to do and aimed himself at it like an arrow. He was only about thirteen when he decided to go into politics. I thought he was kidding, but it turned out he was serious. From that moment on, everything he did was calculated to get him there. The classes he took, the clubs he joined, even the friends he made. Except me. I wasn’t what you’d call an influential friend. He kept me around because he liked me. People called us the odd couple.”