“Yeah? I guess girls have different ‘old times’ than guys,” he commented, pulling out a chair. “Our video nights were all about action movies and lots of junk food. If we were lucky, someone might have nipped a few beers from the family fridge.”
Clare poured two mugs of coffee and brought them to the table. “I must confess beer entered our video nights on one or two occasions. I do recall a contraband bottle of vodka once. Only once, though. None of us wanted to repeat the experience.”
Her laugh was exactly the laugh that Gil remembered. A deep, throaty eruption. When he was seventeen, he’d thought it was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard. The realization that he still did made him pause.
She brought a plate of brownies over to the table and sat down. He took one and bit into it, savoring the jolt of dark chocolate. Sitting across from Clare Morgan in a kitchen brimming with intoxicating scents made Gil feel that he’d died and gone to heaven. It was a snapshot of domestic bliss right out of a Norman Rockwell painting and Gil loved it. But two bites into the brownie, he knew the fantasy was about to burst.
“I took your advice,” she said as she nibbled on a brownie. “I went to see Lisa Stuart and showed her the note,” she went on to say. “She couldn’t tell who might have done it, but I found out something kind of interesting.”
“Oh, what was that?”
“Remember Mr. Wolochuk? He taught chemistry and physics.”
“Yeah, though I never had him as a teacher. Why?”
“He turned up at my book signing in Hartford. Apparently he lives there now and is retired from teaching. On disability. Anyway—” she paused to sip from her mug “—he and his wife had a child. A son, just after we graduated.”
“Uh-huh?” He didn’t have a clue where she was going with the story, but the pleasure of sitting across a table from her, watching her every move and not arguing with her about some ridiculous thing, was enough. He drank some coffee and toyed with the idea of another brownie.
“The son’s name is Jason.” She leaned forward. The look on her face suggested she was about to surprise him. “He’s in Lisa Stuart’s senior English class. The class I spoke to on Monday morning.”
“No kidding. I always thought Wolochuk was an old man.”
She laughed again, lower and deeper this time. He felt a glow inside and wished he was the kind of person who could toss off jokes. Anything to hear that laugh one more time.
“Apparently his wife was much younger. Unfortunately they divorced when Jason was a toddler.” She ran an index finger around the rim of her coffee mug, as if contemplating what she wanted to say next. Finally she came out with it. “Talking about Wolochuk must have triggered a memory. On the way home I remembered something from…from that day.”
Gil’s stomach gave a small lurch. Suddenly he could see the cozy coffee klatch fading away. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“I had missed one of my chemistry labs and Mr. Wolochuk let me make it up after school.”
“Yes, I remember,” was all he said. He didn’t feel like going back to that day right then but she wasn’t to be stopped.
“While I was writing up my experiment I saw Rina Thomas go into Mr. Wolochuk’s office. His office was walled off with these windows so you could see inside but not really hear anything. There was some kind of argument. Rina was furious. All red in the face and shouting at him. I don’t know what it was about but I’d never seen her behave like that to a teacher. Especially one as mild-mannered as Mr. Wolochuk. Then she stormed out of his office, slamming the door behind her. Mr. Wolochuk put his head down on his desk. I went back to my write-up then because I was afraid he’d catch me looking.”
She picked up her coffee and sipped slowly, jiggling some of the toys attached to Emma’s infant seat. Gil knew he didn’t have to say anything. He could let the talk go onto something else, which was what he wanted. But perhaps she’d be satisfied hearing part of what he knew if not all.
“I know why she was ticked off at him,” he said. Clare’s face turned his way. She let go of the brightly colored plastic toy. “Rina found out she’d failed a big assignment,” he continued. “It meant she wouldn’t get a good grade in chemistry which also meant her chance at getting into the program she wanted to in college was in jeopardy. She went there to persuade him to let her rewrite it. He refused.”
“Oh.” Clare thought for a moment. “I guess that explains her anger that day.”
She didn’t speak for a long time. Gil thought he saw tears shining in her eyes and he bit down on his lips, wishing he hadn’t clarified the scene she’d witnessed that day. She was probably asking herself why he and Rina were still close enough for such a confidence. Most of all, why he hadn’t told her before. But the whole thing was complicated enough back then. How could he make her understand the peculiar bond he’d once had with Rina—both of them outsiders in a small-town high school.
Emma began to fuss. Her face scrunched up in a wail of frustration and fortunately for Gil, Clare focused on making Emma happy. She got up to retrieve the half-empty bottle of milk from the counter, then removed Emma from her chair.
“You’re getting good at that,” Gil commented as Clare cradled Emma in her arms.
Clare pursed her lips. Obviously still unhappy about his revelation, Gil guessed. The room fell silent, expect for Emma’s contented noises as she drank from the bottle.
But after a moment, Clare said, “Lisa Stuart suggested I should go to the police about the note.” She paused a beat. “What do you think?”
“Considering the vandalism at the bookstore, that might not be a bad idea. At the worst, you’ll come away feeling slightly foolish.”
“I already do. Maybe I should just forget about it. I’m sure I won’t be here longer than another couple of days. I think Dave comes home tomorrow.”
Gil’s stomach gave a lurch. He heard a car pull into the drive. “Sounds like Laura’s back,” he said and stood up. “I should get going.” He hesitated, hoping she might extend some offer. Either to stay or to see him again. But she didn’t.
“Thanks for the coffee. Oh, and tell Laura I’ll come round to see Dave sometime soon.” He made for the kitchen door, sensing Clare’s eyes on him as he walked out. But other than a low goodbye, she didn’t say another word.
IT WAS JUST AFTER TEN by the time Clare and Laura clicked off the TV. Laura had brought home two movies but they’d both been too tired to watch the second. Video night at age thirty-four was a huge leap from sixteen, Clare realized. While Laura checked on Emma, Clare tidied up in the kitchen. Then she turned out the downstairs lights and went up to her room.
Force of habit compelled her to attempt a couple of pages of the novel she was reading. She had just turned out her lamp when she heard a loud metallic noise outside. Laura had warned Clare that raccoons might try to get into the garbage cans she had placed at the end of the drive for pickup next morning. Dismissing the sound as foraging raccoons, she sank under the covers.
She and Laura had enjoyed reminiscing about school and some of their adventures. They’d sidestepped more serious memories about Twin Falls High and Clare was grateful that Laura hadn’t peppered her with questions about Gil’s visit that morning. In fact, other than raising her eyebrows because Gil had slipped out the back door, Laura had simply expressed relief that the ladder had been stored away.
But Gil’s visit was exactly what Clare wanted to contemplate when she was alone in her room later that night. When he’d arrived, she’d been determined to be polite but detached. She wanted to let him know that they could be friends, in spite of their parting the day before. The past was over and done with so let’s get on with the present. Isn’t that what he’d implied himself? And it was good advice, too, even if she and Gil seemed unable to follow it.
When she’d walked into the living room that afternoon to find Gil making faces at Emma, Clare knew she’d seen a side of Gil she’d never dreamed of. Her seventeen-year-old self could never have env
isioned his naked delight at Emma’s smile. She wondered what other layers of Gil Harper were left to discover and wished suddenly that she could have had the opportunity to find out. If she could rewrite the past, Gil might be standing in their own living room, pulling funny faces at their own baby.
Clare rolled onto her side, staring into the darkness. The past couldn’t be revised no matter how much she wanted it to be. The fact that Rina was still coming between them after all these years proved that. She snuggled deeper under the covers, reminding herself that she’d have to try harder to keep their conversations in the present, when a clatter outside had her leaping from bed to the window.
Her room looked out to the garage and driveway and Clare saw that both garbage cans had been knocked over. She was about to go back to bed when a sudden movement in the hedge separating the drive from the neighbor’s property caught her attention. Clare pressed her face against the window and saw a figure dart from the hedge and disappear into the neighbor’s backyard.
She hesitated only a second before deciding to check if the kitchen door had been locked. On the way downstairs, she thought about waking Laura but decided against it. She had enough to worry about already. The kitchen was lit only by the reflection of a crescent moon but Clare didn’t turn on the light in case the prowler was still nearby.
Seeing that the door was securely locked, Clare peered through the window to the driveway and the side of the yard. Whoever had been lurking around the house seemed to have gone. She waited a moment longer and glanced at the fluorescent clock on the microwave. Midnight. Not many pedestrians about in a residential area at that time, she thought, and the figure she’d seen had definitely not been walking a dog. After a few minutes, she tiptoed back upstairs and slipped into bed. She lay awake for a long time, listening for any more noises from outside. Her last thought, as she eventually drifted off to sleep, was relief that Gil had removed the extension ladder propped against the side of the house.
GIL SWIPED his forearm across his brow, soaking up the beads of perspiration accumulated from almost three hours of carrying cardboard boxes up from the basement, then sorting the detritus of a lifetime into several piles that were now scattered around the small living room.
The real estate agent was going to be getting back to him tomorrow on his counteroffer to the people interested in buying his parents’ house. He figured they’d accept his price, even though they were probably going to tear down the house and rebuild. Standing in the center of the room where he’d spent many hours as a kid, Gil was struck with an unexpected longing to go back to those days. Life was so much simpler then. Before Clare Morgan became something more than the girl who sat three seats behind him and one row over in English class.
Of course, she’d been in the same group of kids who’d followed each other all through elementary school and most of high school. But her circle of friends had not been his and they’d scarcely acknowledged each other, except in a formal and distant way. Until a day when he seemed to see her for the very first time.
She’d been called on to answer a question and, judging by her stammer and rosy complexion, had likely been daydreaming. It was midmorning on a frosty winter day and the sun had thrown a strip of light straight down the center of the room, spotlighting Clare as she stood to answer. Or try to answer.
Her hair was a flame of color in that drab wintry classroom and she’d tossed it out of her eyes as she got to her feet. Her long milky-white fingers played nervously with the pull cord on her hooded sweatshirt and two rosy circles daubed her pale cheeks. She didn’t know the answer and surprisingly, Gil did. If she’d been closer, he’d have whispered it to her. Instead he had to watch her painful embarrassment. Painful because he knew, as did the rest of the class, that she was the top student in that course. But something other than Shakespeare had captured her thoughts that day and her usual quick, articulate response wilted to an apologetic mumble.
On the way out of class, Gil zigzagged ahead of the others to catch up with her. He didn’t have the faintest idea what he was going to say. Asking for her phone number right away wasn’t a good strategy. Instead, he quipped, “Enjoy your trip?”
She’d turned a blank face toward him. They’d scarcely spoken more than a few words to each other that senior year, even though they’d both been on the fringes of intersecting groups throughout their high school years.
“I assume you went south to escape the cold.”
A frown this time. He remembered sweating then, guessing he was adding to his idiot-ranking with every word. But he had to finish, however much he regretted his pathetic attempt to be funny. “During English class?”
And to his relief she’d burst into laughter. He ended up walking her to her next class and had her phone number before the next bell.
Gil stood back to survey the room. Time for a break, he thought. He headed for the kitchen, made some coffee and took a cup to the living room. He still had to deal with all the piles that speckled the floor, but what he was itching to do was to find a reason to go back to the Kingsway home and see Clare. Dave was being discharged from the hospital after lunch so the handy excuse was there, waiting for him. The problem was, he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. Would Clare think he was trying to start something up again? More to the point, was he?
He took a sip of coffee and plunked the mug down onto the well-used coffee table near the front window. Clearing out a house was a hell of a job, he decided. Especially when, at the end, you knew you were losing a major chunk of your childhood. Not to mention your parents’ lives together. There’d only been the three of them, in spite of his parents’ dreams of having more children. Perhaps that had been a good thing after all, given how much both had struggled to keep the family afloat after the lumber mill closed.
The shabbiness of the furniture in this very room was a sign of that struggle, Gil thought. After his mother had died, his father had let things go even more. His parents had been older than those of other kids he’d chummed with, and in a different social and economic bracket. In spite of his skill at athletics, he’d never been part of the in crowd.
That had been one of the links between him and Rina Thomas. She’d lived on a farm about fifteen miles outside of town and was bused into school. Gil had been well aware of the label a lot of the town kids plastered on those who lived outside. Country kids. He suspected the only real thing separating him from that label had been an address in town. So when Rina Thomas struck up a friendship with him at the end of junior year, he’d been flattered and grateful. Flattered, because she was one of the most beautiful girls in the entire school. Grateful, because having a girlfriend meant not worrying about which crowd accepted you. They’d dated just a few months but had remained friends.
Gil finished his coffee. Enough reminiscing. He chose a pile at random and began to sort through stacks of receipts and warranties for various appliances long gone. He’d known his parents had been pack rats, but this was unbelievable. He barely glanced at the sheaves of paper he was shoving into a large garbage bag, but one business-size airmail envelope caught his eye. The penmanship on the outside seemed from another era and he noted that the return address belonged to his grandparents. The date stamp was even more interesting. About a month after Gil had been born. He pulled out a single piece of paper written in the same hand as the envelope.
Dear Marion and Desmond,
Mother and I were so happy after we got your telephone call about young Gilbert’s birth. Most of all, my pride and joy at having my first and only grandson named after me is immeasurable. I don’t think I deserve the honor, but am pleased to accept it. If young Gilbert is half the man his father is, he will be very special indeed. We look forward to seeing him very soon.
Love, Dad
Gil read the letter once more before tucking it back into the envelope. Then he set it on the coffee table and sat down in the chair next to it. He could barely remember his paternal grandfather, who’d died when Gil was only fi
ve years old, and wished he could have seen the letter when he’d been a teenager. He’d always hated his name. Being one of the biggest boys at school and a skilled athlete had prevented a lot of ribbing about the name, but still there’d been some. Now he was used to his name and though he didn’t like it a whole lot more, at least the letter would make carrying it easier.
He forced himself to get back to work, knowing a plunge into nostalgia would put him seriously behind schedule. He worked steadily until lunch, a hastily prepared sandwich and a can of cola. The room was almost clear when he came upon a large stuffed manila envelope in the last heap. Figuring the envelope more than likely contained old bank statements or tax receipts, Gil almost tossed it into the garbage. But curiosity, and a fear of throwing away even one thing of his parents’ that might be important, stopped him. Gil opened the flap and emptied the contents onto the floor.
Newspaper clippings, letters and an assortment of scraps of paper fluttered out. Part of a headline grabbed his attention, pulling him to the floor where he sat, cross-legged, to sift through the collection. The headline read: Local Boy Questioned in Murder Investigation.
Gil’s hands trembled. A rush of queasiness struck as he realized that he was looking at a complete history of the worst days of his life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“TRUST ME, I don’t have the magic touch. It’s just a coincidence. She’s probably just all cried out,” Gil whispered, cradling Emma.
“Whatever you say,” Clare whispered back. She raked her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face. She was exhausted—she’d have loved to be doing what Emma was doing at that moment. Sleeping peacefully. Finally. “Can you put her down carefully in her playpen? It’s set up in the living room.”
Past, Present and a Future (Going Back) Page 10