by Susan Wilson
“I worked in Ralph’s office as a paralegal, but I gave it up when the twins were born. Now I chair a lot of charities in Greenwich.”
Kiley yearned to head to the store, but it would have been rude to end the reunion so abruptly. She touched the only subject they might still have in common. “I saw your boat, Miss Emily. She looks wonderful. Will she be in the August Races?”
“Oh, yes. Dad wants to keep the tradition alive, although it’s getting harder to find a crew. Ralph and Fred, Missy’s husband, aren’t very good sailors.” Putting a confidential hand to her mouth she hissed, “Seasick.”
“My father wants to sell Random, but not before the race.” By bringing up the boats, both in his boatyard, she’d brought the shadow of Grainger into the conversation. Did Emily make note of it? In for a nickel, in for a dime. “Grainger Egan is going to crew for him.”
Emily wore the same smirky curiosity on her face she’d worn the afternoon the twins had asked about Mack and Grainger. Kiley remembered one of them calling him Heathcliff, just this side of derogatory. “Egan’s very good. I was hoping to get him to crew with us.”
Kiley’s tense muscles relaxed. She was being an idiot. Emily wasn’t going to bring up the past; she had moved on a long, long way. The twins’ tepid foray into the wild side with local boys was long forgotten. Just because she’d spent the last eighteen years brooding over the past didn’t mean the Claridge girls even remembered that summer and the way it ended.
Emily waved at a passing car. “But naturally, he’d want to sail with you. I remember that you were close friends.”
“We were.” There seemed little she could add. “How’s Missy?”
“Missy? Fine. Married, two kids—not twins. Her husband, Fred, is a partner in Ralph’s firm. She’ll be here Friday. Say, your parents must still be members at the club. We’re having a fund-raising cocktail party next Saturday, to support the youth sailing program. Auction and hors d’oeuvres. We’d love to see you there. I’ll make sure you get an invitation.”
“Oh, please, don’t bother.”
“Nonsense. You’ll know half the people there. I know that your parents are selling up, but don’t let that stop you. We’d love to see you and your husband.”
“I’m not married.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Emily twisted her diamond around. “I did know that you were single, what was I thinking? No matter, there’ll be several unattached men. We can find an extra man, I’m sure. Conor MacKenzie, you remember him? He’ll be there.”
For a sick moment, Kiley thought Emily was going to wink.
“Emily, I really can’t.”
The foot traffic had managed to skirt around them as they stood in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the new gourmet kitchen shop. Even so, Emily had come closer to Kiley, nearly close enough to feel her breath. “Kiley. It’s for charity. Surely you can afford the ticket. They’re only fifty dollars. Most of it tax deductible.”
“I’ll think about it. Send me the invitation; at the very least, I’ll send a contribution. My parents still have their box—ten-eleven. I’ve got to run, but it was nice seeing you. Give my best to Missy.”
“Kiley.” She was three steps away when she heard her name again.
Kiley paused and turned back to see Emily, her fingers working hard at twisting her massive ring around and around.
“Yes?”
“You can bring your son along, if you want. Several of the older teens will be there.”
Slam dunk. For years, she had refused to come here. Refused to let her parents bring Will. She thought she could save him from being the object of curiosity, of social conjecture, if she never exposed him to Hawke’s Cove. Emily’s words emphasized how right Kiley had been in finally telling him everything, warding off his hearing some stranger’s version.
“I’ll mention it to him, if I decide to go.” Kiley edged between a pair of tourists blocking her escape.
In LaRiviere’s Market, she forced herself to think only about what she needed: hamburger, lettuce, tomatoes. Chips and something for dessert. A liter of cola for the kids. She’d come across a case of California white wine in the cellar; her parents wouldn’t miss one bottle if they hadn’t missed the whole case. She made herself focus on the process, a decision that ultimately she regretted as she struggled with three heavy plastic bags. Naturally, there wasn’t a cab in town. Nearly to the end of Main Street, Kiley half considered returning to the market to ask them to hold on to the bags until she went home to get the car, then remembered she didn’t have the car. Soon she was fairly scowling in annoyance with Will, even though he’d asked twice if she was sure he could have the car.
“Dumb, dumb, dumb.” Kiley’s under-the-breath muttering became a marching song. Just because he wanted his little friend to come have dinner. What was so important about meeting her that Will would make his mother jump through these hoops? Catherine. Not Cathy, or Kate; Catherine. At least it wasn’t Muffy, or Buffy, or Toots, or Pug. Those were the nicknames of some of the girls who used to be at those Yacht Club dances. Girls who attended the good schools, who were tanned year-round from vacations in the “islands” and who lived in a rarefied atmosphere of privilege.
Will said her parents were teachers, and Catherine worked, not spending her summer in leisure. Besides, she was making Will happy, giving him something to do besides hang around the house watching his mother be miserable. Kiley hitched the bags up in her arms. She would be particularly nice to Catherine. After all, she should be grateful to the girl. Kiley squelched the sneaking suspicion she might be one of those mothers who disliked on sight any girl who might come into their son’s life. She wouldn’t be one of those. No way. Lori had been a different kettle of fish.
She wasn’t aware of the sound of a motor slowing down to pass her.
“Do you need help?” Grainger leaned out of his truck window, calling to her from across the lane.
“No, I’m fine.” Kiley shook her head in emphasis. She didn’t want him to see how startled she was by his sudden appearance beside her.
Grainger kept pace with her determined stride. “Put your bags in the truck. There’s no sense in struggling.”
“Toby has people at the house. I don’t want to get back too soon.” She knew that Toby had to be gone by now; it wouldn’t have taken this long to show the house even if they’d gone around twice. But it was too awkward to ride in the confines of the truck with Grainger.
“Just shove Pilot aside. He doesn’t mind.”
“Thanks anyway; I’m really all right.”
“Suit yourself.” Grainger looked at her with slightly offended disappointment and drove away.
Kiley watched Pilot’s head duck back into the cab of the truck. It took her a minute to get her feet moving again. As she came around the bend in the road that led up to the Yacht Club, she spotted the truck idling in a popular scenic turnout. The great expanse of Atlantic Ocean glittered beyond the truck. Surely he’d seen this view a million times. Was he waiting for her?
Kiley wanted to turn around and go in another direction, but there was no other direction home. She would look childish and silly to turn around just to avoid him. “Be a grown-up.” She straightened her shoulders as best she could under the weight of the cumbersome bags and marched on, thankful she was on the other side of the road and could go past him without having to look at him.
“Kiley. Get in the truck,” he called as she drew even.
“It’s a perfectly nice day for a walk.”
“Your ice cream is melting, and I don’t want to be held responsible.”
An involuntary smile raised a corner of her mouth.
“Just get in. No other civility required.”
He was right; the ice cream would be soup by the time she walked the next mile. Besides, the plastic handles were beginning to stretch to the point of breaking. Pilot gazed out at her, his bristly nose poking through the opening in the rear window. A car passed between them; then Ki
ley approached the truck. She set her bags down amidst coils of rope and a pair of oars, and went around to climb in the passenger’s side.
Pilot moved about half of his hindquarters out of her way, then rested his body against hers. Through her window Kiley saw a huge blackback gull effortlessly kite along the edge of the bluff, enjoying the updraft, free from all concerns except eating and breeding.
“Shove him out of the way.”
“No, he’s fine. He likes to snuggle, I see.”
“Check yourself for ticks when you get out, then.”
They rode the rest of the way as if the scenery held their full attention. Kiley almost said something about her conversation with Conor, then held back. What point was there in telling him that she’d told Conor about Will? After her conversation with Emily, it appeared to her that it was hardly news to anyone.
Toby’s Lexus was gone, the empty driveway confirming her solitary occupation of the house. Grainger pulled his truck in, and Kiley opened the door and jumped out. Grainger met her at the side of the truck, pulling the three bags of groceries out of the truck’s deep bed. Kiley took them from him, trying not to touch his hands as he transferred the awkward plastic handles to her.
“Thanks for the ride.” It was on the tip of her tongue to offer a glass of lemonade, but Grainger moved away from her like a man afraid that an invitation to stay might be extended if he didn’t get back into his truck immediately.
The crunch of clamshells broke the awkward moment. Will drew up behind Grainger’s truck, holding it captive in the driveway. “Hi, what’s up?”
Kiley hadn’t seen Grainger and Will side by side before, and the sight of them—both tall and rangy, baseball caps pulled to the same angle shading their brows, a similar maleness as they greeted each other with a handshake—punched her with its significance. If she hadn’t been so overly proud—yes, that was the word, proud—this might have been reenacted time and time again: while Will was tiny, as he grew, as he developed into this handsome young man. Kiley searched for similarities beyond their height and manhood. As they talked about Random, she indulged herself in looking for living evidence of Will’s paternity. Did they have the same jawline, angular and deep? Or did their hands match in long fingeredness and the light furring on knuckles? Grainger’s hair had gone dark with age; would Will’s fair hair darken, as well? Would Mack’s have darkened with age? Conor’s hadn’t, though it had receded.
Eye color, every high school biology student’s first exercise in Mendel’s theories, was useless here. All three of them had blue eyes. Grainger’s were grayer than hers, and Mack’s had been more pale blue, like a summer sky. Hers were a deep, unequivocal ocean blue, just like Will’s.
Kiley knew she was staring and drew her eyes up to catch Will’s. “Can you please move the car so Grainger can leave?”
“Mom, why doesn’t Grainger stay for the barbecue?”
“No, I couldn’t, really, thanks…” Grainger opened his truck door. “Another time, perhaps. I’ll see you tomorrow, Will.”
Kiley held out her grocery bags to Will. “Take these inside, please, Will.”
“Mom, Grainger, why not? I’m sure we have plenty, and you’d both get to meet Catherine.”
“Bring her by the boathouse sometime. I’d love to meet her.” Grainger was back in his truck, but Will’s hand stayed on the door handle, preventing Grainger from shutting the door unless he jerked it away.
“Mom would love for you to stay. Wouldn’t you, Mom?” Will looked hard at her, challenging her to deny it.
“Will.” Kiley’s voice was a warning. “It’s rude to insist when someone has declined.”
Will kept his hand on the door of the truck. “Grainger, come on.” He was a half step away from whiny.
Kiley watched Grainger’s tension-hardened jawline relax, a slow sad smile come to his lips. “I can’t.”
“Forget it.” Will gave them his shrug of I-couldn’t-care-less.
Grainger realized that the blue car was behind his truck. “Will, why don’t you take those bags from your mother and let her move that car.”
Will pulled his hand off the door handle. Disappointment had leveled his mouth into a thin, hard line, but he did as Grainger said, handing her the car keys.
Kiley slipped in behind the wheel, backing the car carefully out onto the bluff road. She waited, but Grainger’s truck didn’t immediately follow. Concerned that Will was trying one more time to change Grainger’s mind, Kiley got out and walked around the hedge to see Grainger still sitting in his truck. In the side mirror, she could see he was staring straight ahead, his hands on the steering wheel, making no move to start the engine. Unaware of her observation, he’d let his guard down and Kiley saw something like disappointment on his face. As if he’d been hoping she would endorse Will’s impulsive invitation.
“Grainger?”
Startled out of his reverie, Grainger twisted the key in the ignition.
“Grainger, wait.”
He kept his profile to her as she walked up to the truck, his gaze still on the middle distance. Did he regret yesterday’s small, sweet moment of touch? Or had it been meant as a cruel physical reminder of what they had lost? When speech couldn’t begin to describe what was forever sullied between them, the feel of his breath on her neck did.
“Grainger, would you consider staying?”
Without looking at her, he nodded. “Only if you’re sure, Kiley.”
“I’m not sure, but I am certain that it would make Will happy.” Even as she said those words, she substituted others in her mind: I want you to be happy.
“I should go change. No civilized person would want to eat with me this way.” He looked down at himself.
“You’re fine.” When she’d sat with him in the truck, Kiley had noticed his warm, masculine scent, not unpleasant, and disturbingly familiar. It was true, then; the nose never forgets. “If you go, you won’t come back.”
Grainger threw her a sharp look of mistrust. Did he think she was referring even obliquely to his running away that day? Kiley quickly tried to recover her meaning. “I mean, we aren’t dressing for dinner. It’s a barbecue for heaven’s sake.”
“I should go. This is a stupid idea. Clearly we aren’t in a place where we can successfully pretend every other sentence isn’t a reference to the past. I’m overly sensitive, and so are you. Let’s just stop here, before it gets out of hand.”
“Grainger, no. I really didn’t mean anything about…about that. I would have said the same…” Her voice trailed off. No, he was right. She did feel as though once off her property, he was a flight risk. “You’re right. This is a stupid idea. I’m just indulging Will in a little hopeless fantasy. Like he said, forget about it.”
“Fantasy? What fantasy? That I’m his father, when we both know that’s not true?” Grainger threw the truck into reverse. “Why don’t you tell him the truth? Why keep him, and me, in the dark?”
“What truth?” Kiley shouted over the engine as Grainger gunned it. The hedges were overgrown and the view up the road obscured. Kiley held her breath as he backed too fast out of the driveway and into the road. She only let it out as he slammed the vehicle into drive and sped away.
If Catherine hadn’t pulled into the driveway at just that moment, Kiley would have given in to the shriek of frustration rising in her throat. Instead, with a second deep breath, she put on a cheerful face to greet Will’s new friend.
Twenty-six
How long does it take to self-destruct? What are the odds of spontaneous combustion brought on by a bursting heart, Grainger wondered as he drove straight home, forgetting that his original errand, before he foolishly stopped to offer Kiley a ride, was to get gas. He probably wouldn’t have enough to drive to the gas station tomorrow, but there was no way he could conduct even ordinary business right now. Anyone who saw his face would read grotesque mistakes written there. Even Pilot, attuned to his every mood, rode with his muzzle leaning through the sliding re
ar window’s opening, as if looking back at his master’s stupid behavior. A day ago he had hoped that Kiley and he would have an opportunity to get past their hurts, move ahead, to forgive. And today, like some sort of self-destructive asshole, he had thrust the opportunity away like shoving a life preserver out of reach. Evidently he preferred to drown in his own emotions.
If Grainger had been a drinking man, he’d have stopped at the liquor store and stocked up, putting out the burn of lost opportunity with the burn of scotch. But he wasn’t. He derided himself: If he was a smart man, he’d turn the truck around and go back. But, he wasn’t. He was a stubborn man, so he went home, and picked up a sander.
Before going windsurfing with Catherine, Will had spent the morning working on Blithe Spirit. Grainger hadn’t told him who she was, only that he’d had her since he’d had the boatyard. Along with the boathouse, the beachfront, six moorings, and all of the equipment, Blithe Spirit had come with the sale. The MacKenzies had hired the former owner to salvage the boat off Bailey’s Beach, and never taken her back home.
It was years before he could make himself uncover her from the blue tarp. Then the first thing he did was to look at the fiberglass patch they’d made. He’d always believed that it had to have been the weak spot, the cause of the accident. But he was wrong; the patch had held.
The second thing he did was sand the name off her transom. So unless Grainger told him, Will would never know this was the same boat in which his father died.
Grainger had come back to Hawke’s Cove because he had gotten a call from the sheriff’s department in Great Harbor. An economically worded message left on his answering machine at his one-bedroom apartment in Galveston, where he lived during those rare weeks not afloat, stated that he should call back ASAP; it was urgent. He knew that Rollie Egan must be dead; there could be no other reason for them to call. He was a little surprised they’d been able to track him down.
When Grainger called the sheriff’s office, the female voice on the line was businesslike, not unkind, or particularly sympathetic. Exactly right for the impassive way he received the news. She detailed the accident as he asked questions, giving him only as much detail as he wanted.