“That means we’ll have to go to the grocery store.”
For a minute the Colonel looked at me. I had already discovered that I used words in ways that were novel to him, even though the word itself — or its root — was not. “How is your foodstuff sold? Do you still have butchers, green grocers, bakers?”
“Yes. But normally they are found in the same place.”
“A single shop?”
“Usually a pretty large one.”
“I see. Do you still have market places, market days?”
“Farmers’ markets,” I told him. “If it had been daylight you would have seen them on the byways after we left the interstate yesterday. But mostly we shop at grocery stores. When people say they’re going to the market, that’s what they mean. And you’ll see a lot of people there,” I went on. “Crowds.”
“Throngs. A regular press.” A note of boredom crept into his voice.
“It will probably be interesting to you,” I said.
“Pray tell me, Mrs. Finlay, what it is that we’re talking about?”
“People will be dressed rather briefly.” I knew the eighteenth century was hardly a prudish era — quite the contrary, actually — but to the uninitiated, average eighteenth-century refugee, the sort of things twenty-first century people wore around beach towns would probably be startling, to say the least.
“We saw people as we drove yesterday,” he said. “People dressed — if you can call it that — rather briefly.”
“They dress more briefly here.”
“Do they?” Suddenly the Colonel smiled. “And the women, too?”
He made me laugh. “Maybe we should take a walk on the beach,” I suggested. “As a sort of preview.”
“I have already been out on your balcony—”
“Deck—”
“And saw no one within hailing distance. So pray tell me, what is it that I am to preview?”
“A bikini.”
“And that would be…?”
I didn’t even try to explain. Instead I went out on the deck and descended the stairs to the beach, the Colonel following behind me. We headed south, hiking the damp, hard-packed sand at the edge of the surf for perhaps a quarter of a mile, passing two women, one in a beach cover-up and the other in shorts.
And then we saw her: a barefoot blonde gliding past on long, suntanned legs.
“My lord,” the Colonel breathed.
“Don’t stare.”
“She’s barely wearing anything at all.” He paused. “A bikini, I take it.”
I smiled and kept on walking.
“You’re rather quiet,” the Colonel observed a few minutes later. “In truth, you seem somewhat troubled.”
Sandpipers, searching for delicacies thrown up by the surf, retreated down the beach as we advanced. I watched them for a minute, wondering how to answer.
“My husband’s been here,” I said finally.
“Really?” I could tell he was startled, but he kept his voice off-hand. “How distressingly inconvenient. Shall we flee or stand our ground?”
I shook my head. “He’s not here now. I meant he’s been here sometime in the last few weeks. I hadn’t expected that.”
“You mean, he out-flanked you.”
“Precisely. I don’t think it means much, strategically,” I went on, deliberately adopting a military term, “but it was…surprising.”
“The elusive Mr. Finlay,” he remarked, glancing at me. “I don’t believe you’ve mentioned him since you served me tea in Pennsylvania. Not a word or a syllable, as a matter of fact.”
Suddenly, I stopped walking, which meant the Colonel stopped, too.
“We have a lot of work to do,” I said.
“Are we changing the subject?” he asked.
I didn’t answer, and after a moment we turned, heading back the way we came. We were both good walkers, I realized, covering ground in long, even strides. I stopped once to pick up an unbroken conch shell, and when I straightened the Colonel’s arm, muscled and warmed by the sun, brushed mine.
Suddenly I said, “My husband has slept with half the women in town.” The words seemed to well up on their own accord, like water boiling over the sides of a pot.
“Really? Half you say?” He was trying for wit, to lighten the moment, perhaps. Or to buy time, uncertain what his reaction should be.
“It seems that way, sometimes.” Without knowing why, I wanted to tell him how Cameron had slept his way through every willing nurse, technician and female M.D. at the hospital, and how, when he ran out of those, he began exploring other professions — everything from law to waitressing.
I glanced at the Colonel, wondering if I could sum my marriage up in twenty-five words or less, condense its salient features into a pithy little paragraph that would convey the essence of a modern marriage gone bad to a man in whose world separate addresses might be tolerated but divorce was social suicide. I didn’t think I could.
The Colonel read my silence. “I’m sorry,” he said briefly. “Has it always been thus?”
I managed a shrug. “In the beginning I didn’t know,” I said, “and later I didn’t want to believe. But about a year ago—”
I broke off, not wanting to relive the afternoon I walked into a restaurant on William Street with Sammy and Blythe, only to discover their daddy sharing a cozy lunch with a woman I never saw before. We turned and left, but not before Cameron and the children saw each other, making Cameron feel obliged to follow us out onto the street. It was terrible — Cameron and I hissing at each other on the sidewalk while the children chirped hi Daddy hi Daddy hi Daddy, mercifully unaware of the drama going on around them. Or maybe not.
“You were saying?” the Colonel asked.
“It’s not important.”
For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “Couldn’t you just live apart?”
“We are living apart. More or less.”
“No, I mean completely. Separate households. I know quite a few people who live quite civilly in this manner. In London, it’s not at all uncommon to find—”
I realized it before he did. “You’ve remembered something.”
He stared at me in bafflement. “I remember…” he began. “I remember…”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Damn,” he said softly, turning away from me. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“What?” I scampered around him, trying to insert myself into his line of vision. “You know something!”
He refused to catch my eye. “I know a great number of things,” he said testily.
“You know people in London,” I persisted.
He lifted his face, watching gulls soar and cry above us. Finally he looked at me.
“I have connections in London. I’m absolutely sure of it. But I cannot for the life of me, Mrs. Finlay, remember who — or what — they are.”
Chapter 14
Shortly before noon we headed to the grocery store, driving north all the way to Nags Head to do our shopping because there was less chance of running into anyone I knew. Not that I expected to meet up with all my closest friends or anything, but the Mansfields have been summer residents of Avon for the last two or three generations and in the process have gotten acquainted with a number of the natives. I could just imagine Doreen Jennings, who managed Avon’s local grocery store, telling my mother all about that nice Englishman Kathy Lee brought down with her the last time she was here. Doreen is Lila’s Deepthroat, keeping her abreast on what’s what in Avon. Actually, there are several Doreens among Lila’s Avon acquaintances. Some are named Daisha, Crystal and Eugene. Any one of them would be happy to tell Lila about the man Kathy Lee brought with her to the cottage.
For most of our drive we were quiet and preoccupied. I figured the Colonel’s thoughts concerned his lost London connections, while mine, regrettably, were mostly about my marriage. Looking back on it, I realize Cameron’s lunchtime tete-a-tete should have ended it on the spot. But Cameron had other pl
ans. He denied everything, energetically and at length, and shifted the blame to me.
I don’t know what you think you saw, Kathy Lee. But do you have any clue how preoccupied with the children you always are? How mind-numbingly dull that is for me? It’s no wonder I work late. What’s there to come home to, anyway?
I shook my head and glanced over at the Colonel. We were driving through a stretch of Cape Hatteras National Seashore where the dunes and wetlands were stunning in their stark, unspoiled beauty. The Colonel gazed at the scenery, spellbound, oblivious to me beside him. And then I saw his head snap like a rubber band.
“What,” he asked in amazement, “is that?”
“A woman on a bicycle,” I said.
I could feel his eyes on me. “A bicycle,” he repeated, and for a moment I was afraid he’d furnish me with the Greek and/or Latin roots of the word.
“It’s a man-powered machine,” I explained, trying to forestall him. “There are pedals that you pump with your feet to make the wheels turn. Look,” I interrupted myself. “There’s another one.”
Over the next few miles we passed several more bicycles, and the Colonel studied each one carefully. I think bicycles excited him more than anything else had. “They’re so simple,” he said admiringly, his head practically hanging out the window. “When were they invented?”
“Sometime in the nineteenth century. I don’t know exactly.”
“So simple,” he repeated thoughtfully. “On a principle not unlike the treadmill and a dozen other contrivances. I can’t believe they weren’t invented sooner.”
On the other side of Oregon Inlet near milepost 16, I turned into a shopping center and parked in front of Surf ‘n’ Shore. Surf ‘n’ Shore is a small, ordinary kind of food store with distinctly limited merchandise, but it dazzled the Colonel. He trailed after me past canned goods and fresh vegetables muttering “amazing, absolutely amazing” at intervals under his breath. By and large, however, we managed to keep a low profile until we hit the checkout counter where the computerized cash register (that even thanked you with its little electronic R2D2 voice) so enchanted him that he startled the checker by asking her how it worked.
“Excuse me?” The checker stared first at him and then at me.
“This … this contraption,” the Colonel gestured impatiently.
“He’s been doing research in … um … Africa,” I interrupted quickly. “In the bush. Where they don’t have scanners and stuff.”
Fortunately, the Colonel recollected himself in time. “That’s right,” he agreed. “They’re busy doing … the usual Africa thing. Very little time for … ah … scanners, things of that nature, you know.”
The checker continued to stare. “He’s been away a long time,” I explained, hastily counting money into her hand.
“Indeed,” the Colonel agreed, flashing an ingratiating smile. “Sometimes it almost seems like centuries.”
Deliberately, I stepped on his foot and a moment later we exited the store. By now he had given up looking for liveried servants and assorted flunkeys and manned the grocery cart out to the parking lot with twenty-first century aplomb. I followed a few steps behind him carrying the bag containing the eggs.
On the sidewalk I paused to shift the strap of my purse up over my shoulder, then stepped off the curb. Ahead of me the Colonel made for the car as several other shoppers crossed the lot heading toward the store. One of them — a man impeccably dressed in a blue lisle polo shirt and pleated front linen trousers — stopped abruptly in a near-parody of surprise. At first I thought the Colonel had done something especially startling. Then I realized he was staring at me.
For an instant my mind went blank. It had been awhile since I’d seen him, and I certainly never expected — or wanted — to see him here. For the merest nanosecond I prayed for the earth to open and swallow me up. When it didn’t, I plastered a smile on my face and lifted my chin in greeting.
“Why, Phillip Olson,” I called out gaily. “Fancy meeting you here!”
In a heartbeat, Phillip’s expression went from astonished to animated.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” he countered.
We chuckled merrily over his wit. Henry may have thought he was an old bore, but Phillip Olson was actually a reasonably likeable guy. I probably would have been genuinely pleased to see him, had the situation been less complicated. But then it occurred to me, what with the Colonel was striding several paces ahead of me and all, that Phillip probably thought I was alone. The idea warmed me considerably.
So we chatted for a few minutes. I told Phillip I was at the cottage for a few days of rest and relaxation, and he told me he was doing a little recreational painting (as he put it) and tending to his own cottage over on the Sound. I had not known he had a place on the Outer Banks, but it was far from a remarkable coincidence. Half of Virginia owns cottages here and the other half rents them by the week. The remarkable thing, when I thought about it, was that I had not run into more people that I knew.
Over Phillip’s shoulder I glimpsed the Colonel and the grocery cart slip out of sight on the far side of a large van. Ever alert, the Colonel would do nothing to connect himself with me. Meanwhile, Phillip was telling me that he seen Lila several days ago, and I told him she was watching the children while I was gone. We exchanged a few more pleasantries, then went our separate ways. Phillip entered the store (I noticed, casting a glance behind me) about the same time I reached the car. I unlocked the trunk, raised the lid, and counted to thirty. About that time the Colonel materialized beside me.
“A friend?” he asked, hefting a case of Diet Cokes from cart to car.
“Of Lila’s,” I explained.
“I was reasonably certain you would wish to forgo introductions.”
“Actually, I don’t think he connected us,” I told him.
“I could not imagine that he would. Thanks to your dwaddling, I was several paces ahead of you—”
“I did not dwaddle—”
“In truth, it was probably fortunate that you did—”
“I did not—”
“Considering the circumstances.”
“Though it probably didn’t matter,” I put in, slamming down the trunk. “I mean, even if he had seen me with some strange man clearly not my husband, I doubt he’d run back to Fredericksburg bearing tales to my mother. He’d probably be more discreet than that.”
“Any gentlemen would.”
I smiled and got into the car. The Colonel got in beside me. I put on my sunglasses, tilted the rearview, and fluffed my hair in the mirror.
“You know,” the Colonel said, watching me. “You look amazingly like your sister. I meant to tell you that.”
“What are you talking about?” I repositioned the mirror. “I don’t have a sister.”
“That, ah, photograph. In my chamber.”
He meant bedroom. “There’s a whole wall of photographs in that room,” I said. “Which one do you mean?”
“The one of you and the horses. There’s an exquisite little blonde with you. I assumed an older sister.”
I knew the picture he meant. It was a color eight-by-ten, one of Lila’s favorites, taken at a hunt breakfast several autumns ago. We are standing side by side in jackets and ratcatchers, smiling happily into the camera, flanked by our patient horses, their heads obligingly at our shoulders. We hadn’t yet donned our hard hats, which is why the Colonel noted the color of Lila’s hair.
“My mother,” I said shortly.
“Mother, then. Anyway, the resemblance is quite striking.”
“I don’t look anything like my mother. To begin with, she’s … she has blond hair.”
“You have her face.”
I stared at him and shook my head. “No,” I told him emphatically. “No, I don’t. My mother’s … beautiful.”
The Colonel studied me for a long minute. “Yes, so she is,” he agreed finally, regarding me with a mixture of surprise and amusement. �
��As are you, Mrs. Finlay. Surely, you must know that.”
*****
I didn’t know. Living with someone like Lila, of course, I wouldn’t know. Lila was an acknowledged beauty, perfect as a magnolia blossom, and I was ordinary. This was not something I minded. In fact, I didn’t think much about it. I had good skin and real curls, and while I wasn’t delicate like Lila, I wasn’t especially big or clumsy. When I was growing up I had dates for the things that really mattered, so I knew I wasn’t repulsive. If I had to describe myself I would have used words like “average” or “normal.” I would never have used the word “beautiful.” But the Colonel had, and I couldn’t imagine he was given to flattery.
For days afterward I glanced at every mirror I passed, searching for Lila.
Chapter 15
Running into Phillip at the grocery worried me. Even though he hadn’t seen me with the Colonel, I was aware that his presence posed a complication to my already complicated life. The thing was, if I ran into Phillip once, I could conceivably do so again. And the next time the Colonel might be right there beside me and impossible to explain away.
On the other hand, I believed what I said in the parking lot, that Phillip wasn’t likely to bear tales. Still, I preferred not testing my theory. After all, I had bigger things to think about.
I put away the groceries, shoved Phillip out of my mind and tried instead to figure out our next move. I retreated to the study and sorted through the bookshelves. We had rows and rows of paperbacks, a fair selection of outdated reference books and even some forgotten college textbooks. But there was nothing, not a paragraph or chapter, pertaining to the physics of time. What I would have given for a laptop.
Meanwhile, the Colonel sprawled on the living room sofa reading Tristram Shandy, a novel from his own period that I found among the paperbacks. But an hour later, as I was mulling over some of Cameron’s old science texts, he wandered into the study. I felt his gaze on me and raised my eyes.
“What are these?” he asked, holding out a handful of old audio tape cassettes.
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