Always Emily

by Mary Sullivan

  “It belongs in a museum, or at the very least, in climate-controlled storage so it won’t deteriorate.” She tucked it into her purse. “Do you have a small box I could use to mail it?”

  “Come with me. I get items mailed to me often since the Museum displays artifacts from all over the Western states.” He led her to the storage room, where they found a small, sturdy carton.

  “I’ll make certain I pack it well for Arthur.”

  She said his name sweetly, with affection. Salem didn’t like to hear another man’s name on Emily’s lips, and for an intensely civilized man, his jealousy made him feel strangely primal.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE GOT HOME, she checked the internet and found, not surprisingly, that Jean-Marc was fighting back with more innuendo and nasty remarks about their history together.

  At least this time, her friends were more vocal in their support of her, despite having to be careful that their boss didn’t turn on them, too.

  At some point, she was going to have to figure out a more permanent solution. At the moment, all she could think to do was to start the prayer book on its journey home.

  Emily called FedEx about picking up a package. She packed the prayer book, almost obsessive in how well she padded it in the carton Salem had given her. She would never forgive herself if it were damaged.

  As it was, she’d done such a good job the delivery people could play football with the package and the relic would survive.

  Penelope was going to curse her from here to the pyramids when she had to cut through all of the shipping tape with which Emily had coated the box.

  The door at the bottom of her stairs opened.

  “Emily-y-y-y-y, I have fresh cinnamon buns.”

  Emily smiled. “Cinnamon buns? Say no more. I’ll be right there.”

  Once Emily had made her peace with her father’s remarriage twenty years ago, Laura had always called up to Emily in the same way, drawing out her name to make her smile.

  Dear Laura. It was good to be back. If Emily could make a go of teaching music in Accord, she could once again call the town home. After her harrowing escape from the guards at the airport, and feeling so lost after breaking ties with Jean-Marc and archeology, it felt good to have a positive outlook. Her future didn’t look as dim as when she’d first arrived.

  Package in hand, Emily answered the door and gave the well-wrapped prayer book to the driver. It was on its way. With a little luck, it would arrive in one piece.

  Emily had tea and cinnamon buns with Laura and her dad, and explained what she and Salem had found on Turner land.

  Their faces reflected the shock she still felt.

  Laura reached for her hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m still processing. It’s surreal. I mean, it isn’t like finding an ancient burial, you know? It’s much more disturbing.”

  “Speaking of ancient burials...” Her dad sighed. “Please tell me you meant what you said about staying home for good.”

  Did no one trust her word?

  “Yes, Dad, I really have given up on archeology, and yes, I really am going to stay here to live. Really.”

  He put down his cinnamon roll, wiped his fingers and then stood, pulling her out of her chair with a hand around her wrist.

  “What—”

  The next thing she knew she was wrapped in a bear hug with the breath being squeezed out of her lungs.

  “I’ve been so worried about you.” Her father set her down and gripped her upper arms. “Every time you went to some of those countries, I feared a war would break out, or terrorists would attack. I thought I would lose you.”

  She’d had no idea he worried so much.

  “Welcome home, sweetheart.” His voice sounded watery.

  He enveloped her in another hug and Laura joined them at Emily’s back, wrapping her arms as far around them as she could. Emily’s heart did a long, graceful swan dive into a sea of happiness.

  * * *

  ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Emily planned to visit her former music teacher, but life threw a spanner into the works.

  Still tired after her bout with malaria, she slept in until ten, unheard of in her previous life. When she went downstairs, there was only silence. The house and the garage stood empty. She didn’t know where everyone was, but she did know she needed a car to visit Mrs. Gendron, who had retired to a small house in the country on the far side of town.

  So much for visiting her today.

  Emily could at least walk into town to pick up some items from the pharmacy. After a quick breakfast, she set out.

  The trek refreshed her. The balmy May breeze helped to chase the image of the ghostly specters of those skeletal fingers from her mind. Funny that she’d never minded looking at mummies in museums, but those bodies had been recovered from burial sites, buried where they were supposed to have been, not in the forest floor.

  She forced herself to stop thinking about it, but when she ran into Salem on Main Street in front of the pharmacy, it all came back.

  “Hey,” he said, his response subdued and his expression somber.

  “Are you thinking about what I’m thinking about?” Sunshine warmed her shoulders, but ice chilled her core.

  “The body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t help but.” He held the door of the shop open. “You going in here, too?”

  She nodded and stepped in ahead of him. “Brr. It’s cold.”

  “Ingram pretty well turns on the air the second he turns off the furnace for the winter.”

  Emily laughed. “I think—” A voice interrupted what she’d been about to say about Mrs. Ingram, the pharmacist, being menopausal. There couldn’t be any other reason for a man to keep the place as cold as a refrigerator.

  “Hi, Salem. Hello, Emily. Are you here on one of your fly-by-night visits?”

  Victoria Pound approached out of one of the aisles, the last person Emily wanted to see. Tori had been one of the mean girls in school.

  Throughout the years, Emily had managed to be polite whenever she saw Tori, but there had never been any pleasure in seeing her.

  “Hi.” Emily couldn’t for the life of her manage to sound friendly.

  “I’m surprised you ever come back here,” Tori said. “What with our town being so small and all. Hardly seems worthwhile for a famous archeologist.” Emphasis on the famous.

  Emily wasn’t famous. Jean-Marc, with his sound bites, charm and good looks, was, and so Emily had sometimes been caught with him in photos taken at parties and fund-raisers that had later appeared in magazines. But she wasn’t famous, and never would have been known at all without Jean-Marc. Not that obscurity would have bothered her. The media, the parties and contact with celebrities had been seductive, but Emily’s career had never been about that. She just loved history, plain and simple.

  Tori didn’t look well. In fact, she looked tired. Her hair hung in brown strands, not the glossy, pampered blond it had been in high school. She held a baby in her arms. Two children ran from the aisle and handed her a box of tampons.

  “Found them, Mom,” one of the kids shouted.

  Tori’s embarrassed glance slid away from Salem. He studied a box of liver pills on a shelf.

  “What brings you back to town?” She sounded glum.

  “I’m home for good. I’ve given up archeology.”

  Tori’s eyes widened comically. “Are you crazy?”

  Emily’s spine stiffened. “Not last time I checked.”

  “You have this great job, going to all kinds of exotic places and you’re giving it up to come back here?” Tori obviously had serious issues with here. “Do you know how jealous I was when you left this Podunk town and got your amazing career?”

  Tori envied her? It explained s
o much—the dirty looks, the unfriendly manner.

  “The career ran its course,” Emily tried to explain. “It no longer holds my interest.”

  Tori had no idea how much of Emily’s job had been tedious, moving earth by the teaspoonful, finding objects once every few months. It took patience and perseverance, and a certain type of committed personality. Glamour had nothing to do with it, and no country could stay exotic forever.

  “You’re looking good,” Tori said. Despite the earlier sarcasm, she sounded sincere. The baby squirmed in Tori’s arms.

  “She’s adorable.” Emily loved children. “May I hold her?”

  Tori handed her over and within minutes the baby was laughing. “What’s her name?”

  Tori paid Mr. Ingram for her tampons. “Charlotte.” Mr. Ingram wore a heavy fall cardigan. Yep, the missus was menopausal.

  “Oh, what a lovely name. Funny how Charles is such a sober name, but Charlotte so pretty. I hope no one calls her Charlie. That would be sacrilege when she has such a beautiful name.” She did this too often. Talked about odd things no one else cared about. “Sorry. I get carried away on weird subjects.”

  “That’s okay.” With Emily’s interest in her daughter, Tori warmed. “Would you... Do you want to go out for coffee sometime? I’d love to hear about your travels.”

  It seemed Tori had decided on the spot to handle her envy a whole lot better, even extending an olive branch.

  Emily jostled Charlotte and she giggled. “I’d like that.”

  Tori made a rueful face. “I would have to bring the children.”

  “Great. I love kids.” She had a sudden thought. “If you know of anyone who needs music lessons for their children, let me know. I’m going to teach music here in Accord.”

  “Music lessons? I might take you up on that for the oldest one here, Mikey.”

  Tori smiled before leaving the store. It seemed genuine.

  “You’re staying to teach music? For how long?”

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again, Salem—I’m home for good.”

  He kept his skepticism to himself. Good. She didn’t feel like arguing today. “What are you here for?”

  “Toothbrushes for my girls. I noticed they need new ones.”

  “Where on earth did you dig up that tiny child’s brush I used the other day?”

  Under his gorgeous honey skin, his high flat cheekbones burnished red. “I, um, I’ve been buying them for Aiyana and Mika. I haven’t really kept up with the changes they’ve gone through lately.”

  “Boy, I’ll say.”

  “What are you up to today?”

  “Remember Mrs. Gendron? She taught me music all through high school. I want to visit her, but all of the family’s cars are gone. Everyone’s out and about today and I don’t know where they’ve gotten to.”

  “I can drive you out and back.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Nope. Give me a minute to pick up the stuff I need.”

  “Me, too. I’ll meet you out front in ten minutes.”

  Along with shampoo and conditioner, Emily found a postcard of Colorado with a bear in the photo. Maria would love it.

  Before driving out, they stopped at Tonio’s and picked up a half dozen cannoli for Mrs. Gendron then got back into the Jeep.

  Although it looked roomy, the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, Emily learned, was not a big vehicle. She’d been too sick on her first night back in Accord to notice how close the driver and passenger seats were.

  When Salem changed gears, his solid arm brushed hers. The sun shining through the windshield warmed everything, even him, and his soap scent filled the close interior.

  She became hyperaware of every breath he took, of the way he drove with confidence, but not arrogance. That was Salem in a nutshell. A Bertholletia excela. A Brazil nut shell with his light nut-toned skin she knew would darken over the summer.

  “Can I ask you a question, Emily?”

  “Sure.”

  “What was that tension back there between you and Tori?”

  Oh, boy. Other than Aiyana and Pearl recently, she’d never shared those dark secrets with anyone. “When we were in high school, she and three other girls were the definition of mean girls. Once boys started to sniff around me, I guess they got jealous and turned their venom on me. They were ruthless.”

  She felt his startled glance on her skin like a touch. “Was it bad? Like with Aiyana?”

  “Better and worse.” She kept her focus on the road ahead, because she didn’t want to see pity on Salem’s face. “Better in that it was more contained since we didn’t have Facebook or Twitter, but worse because there was no one to rescue me. I didn’t have an older brother or friends who could pretend I was one of the cool kids, or who had influence and could persuade them to back off.”

  “Like Cody did for Aiyana.”

  “Like Cody.” She slid off her shoes and rested her feet against the glove compartment, curling her fingers around her knees. “So the abuse went on for a long time. It felt like forever. I was miserable.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “How could you have? You’d already finished high school a few years before and were involved with Annie. You didn’t really notice me anymore. I wasn’t on your radar back then.”

  They’d arrived at Mrs. Gendron’s tiny cottage with the red VW Beetle tucked under a carport on the side of the house. Emily smiled. How like Mrs. Gendron. She’d always been a bit of a free spirit.

  Emily slipped her shoes back on. “Besides, when you live with shame, you learn how to cover it really well. I became a master at pretending everything was fine. I don’t think even my family knew there was a problem. Dad always said I had spunk, so I used it ruthlessly to fool people into thinking I was okay. I didn’t have enough resources to fight everyone at school, but I made them believe I didn’t care.” Then she’d used the same techniques over the years to hide her troubles with Jean-Marc. “I did care, though. What those girls did really hurt me.” As did everything Jean-Marc had done.

  “I’m tired of being a victim. It won’t happen ever again.”

  Just as Emily moved to leave the Jeep, Salem touched her arm. “You were never off my radar, Emily, but I made a commitment to Annie. I married her, so I put my energy into making my marriage work. I had to set aside my feelings for you. They surfaced again when you came home last year. Nothing I could do about it.”

  The look he gave her before he climbed out of the vehicle smoldered.

  Saintly jumping...relics. What was the man trying to do to her? Was he deliberately confusing her, playing with her emotions? Or was he as confused as she was?

  She scrambled out of the passenger seat and followed him as he approached the house, because it seemed safer to ignore the issue and get on with her mission. Salem Pearce could go make some other girl hot and bothered. First he wanted her and then he didn’t and then he did. She didn’t have a clue what to do about Salem.

  When Emily rapped on the frame of the screen door, three yapping Pekinese came running down the tiny hallway. Mrs. Gendron opened the door and the dogs bounded out onto the minuscule veranda. Salem crouched and gave them attention.

  Everything about the place, and the woman, was tiny. Barely five feet tall, Mrs. Gendron smiled at Emily from a face with a network of lines crashing into each other when she smiled, like a train wreck of wrinkles.

  “Emily, my favorite student. How delightful. Come in. Hello, Salem.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Gendron.”

  “Call me Violet, both of you. You’re adults now. What brings you here?”

  “I want to start teaching music in Accord.” Emily sat in the armchair Violet indicated. “I’d like to pick your brains about it.”

  Violet’s face lit up as though someone ha
d flicked on a light switch. “I’m so glad.”

  They talked music and teaching for an hour and a half while they drank tea and ate cannoli. No one had taken Violet’s place when she’d retired five years ago, leaving the field wide open for Emily.

  Emily’s thoughts tumbled over each other. “I’ll need a place of my own. I can’t possibly put the family through listening to new students learning the violin. Or worse, something like the saxophone.”

  “You played alto sax so well in band. Remember? You had an aptitude for so many instruments. You were my best student ever.”

  Emily blushed. She knew half a dozen instruments well enough to teach, including piano, but her passion was violin.

  Salem carried their dirty dishes to the kitchen and washed them in the sink. “There’s an apartment available on Main Street, above The Last Dance.”

  “The floral shop?”

  Salem nodded. “The owner, Audrey, is a super woman. She’d make a great landlady.”

  “That would be good for living in, but not for teaching music. I would disturb her and her customers downstairs during business hours, and the tenants in neighboring units during the evening.”

  “True,” Violet said. “You’ll find yourself teaching at all kinds of odd hours to accommodate work and school schedules.”

  Her expression turned thoughtful. “Come.” With her thin arms, she hoisted herself out of a cozy chintz armchair and stepped out the back door. Emmy followed with Salem bringing up the rear.

  “Look.” Violet pointed to a small, detached garage behind the house. “I never use it. It’s full of old junk I don’t want anymore, but I just don’t have the energy to start cleaning it out. It needs a coat of paint on the exterior and a lot of work inside to make it habitable. If you’re willing to do the work, you can use it to teach.”

  “You would let me rent this from you?”

  “Rent? No. Use? Yes.” She shone her bright, clear-eyed gaze on Emily. Laughter lurked in its depths. “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let me sit in on the lessons occasionally. I’m bored. I hate TV and I get tired of my crossword puzzles.” Emily had heard that her husband had died about ten years ago.