“I am enjoying it,” she lied. It drove her crazy to sit still and do nothing and he knew it. Frustrated, he went back to watching everyone else have a grand time.
After a moment, just her eyes flickered over to watch the shadows dance on his face. He was still, in her mind, anatomical perfection. That hadn’t changed. It wasn’t easy to put up a hard front, to pretend that his attention didn’t rattle her to her core. It was easier, safer, to keep him at a distance. She’d never tell him, but she refused to dance with him because she didn’t think her knees would hold up. And if he kissed her again, well, she’d likely fall flat on her face and embarrass herself. While discreetly admiring him, she didn’t notice how her head traveled and before she knew it, he turned and she was caught in a moment of awe.
“There’s that look again,” he whispered, fighting a grin. “I knew it.”
Panicked, she threw back her chair. Peter was quick to follow.
“Muzzy.”
She walked fast and her thighs burned as she churned through the sand.
“No, wait. Talk to me.” He caught up and tugged at her blouse.
Muzzy yanked away and headed farther down the beach where it was darker. Where he couldn’t see her face burning red.
“Leave me alone.”
He took her arm to slow her down. She didn’t yank away this time but shoved him instead. He tumbled back and his backside planted in the sand.
She pounded a few more paces then turned around.
“This can’t be real, Peter. It just can’t!”
“But it is,” he said, getting up slowly.
She held her hands up. “Don’t come near me.”
“Muzzy, I’ll never forget how you looked the first time you saw me. You did it again tonight. I know what you feel deep down. Why you won’t admit it baffles me. But I will. I’ll scream it up and down the beach. I love you. You want me to? I’ll do it right now.”
“No.” She retreated a few paces and her face was barely visible. From what he could make out in the dark, it looked like she might cry.
“This isn’t real,” she said again, barely above a whisper.
“Why is it so impossible to believe that I actually care about you?”
“Because women like me don’t get…”
“Don’t get what?” he asked, moving closer.
“Don’t get men like you,” she blurted out quickly. “No decent looking man has ever paid me any attention. Because I’m not like all the other women. I’m odd.”
“You’re not odd. You’re unique. That’s one of the things I love about you.”
She shook her head, refusing to believe.
“Have you ever stopped to look around? You’d probably be surprised to see men do look your way. I’ve noticed, and frankly, it bothers the hell out of me.”
She looked more in control of herself, but still far from believing him.
“If I let this be real, then when you go, it’s going to hurt twice as bad.”
“I swear to you, I’m not leaving.”
Her eyes didn’t adore now— they were defiant. “I don’t believe you. There are a hundred women in town who are more fashionable, more fun than I am. It’s only a matter of time before one of them catches your eye. If I let you in my heart, then I give you the power to break it.”
He could tell her all night long that that would never happen. It was all talk; she wouldn’t believe it. Not yet. Only time would show her he was with her for the long haul.
“You asked for some time to get used to this, and I told you I’d give that to you. I’ll give you anything you ask for. Unless you ask me to go away. Because I can’t do that.”
She lowered her eyes now that he was only inches away, battling her urge to run. With a finger, he lifted her chin.
“And you’ve got it all wrong, Muzzy Brown. Men like me usually aren’t lucky enough to get women like you.”
He kissed her, and had her heart not been thrumming in her ears, she’d have heard the cheers and hoots ring out from behind.
***
Mona was a pretty woman but had the hard look of the working class. She had dark brown curls pinned back on the sides and green eyes that looked much older than the rest of her features. As a fellow waitress, and Arianna’s supervisor, she’d taken her under her wing and tried to be her friend.
“Dare I say, you’re doing quite well? I wasn’t sure how you’d work out, but I’m glad we hired you.”
Arianna turned the sign on the door to closed, drew the last of the curtains, and sat down across from Mona with a grunt.
“My feet are killing me.” Then her head snapped up. “Why weren’t you sure I’d work out?” she asked.
Mona shrugged. “You had no experience waiting tables. And you look uppity.”
“No experience? Ha! Waiting hand and foot on a family is experience enough. Lord knows these customers are just as picky and twice as whiny.” Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by uppity?”
Mona laughed. “You look like the kind to be waited on, not the kind doing the serving, that’s all.”
“Humph.”
Arianna rubbed the back of her neck, stretching it. It wasn’t the first time someone had insinuated she had the air of royalty. Hearing it now made her laugh. There was nothing royal about her reality—sleeping on a friend’s sofa, trying not to eat too much so she wasn’t a burden, and whiling away the evenings waiting on rude and impatient customers while waiting for a letter from her husband. It wasn’t a life she was proud of.
“Stay right here. I’ll go get something to help with your neck,” Mona said and pushed herself out of the chair.
The street outside was busy this Friday night, but inside, the restaurant was quiet. In the low lighting, it didn’t look half bad. Of course, Arianna had a dozen ideas to pretty the place up. She envisioned different curtains, candles on each table, and a printed menu with a fancier font. She wondered if the owner would be open to hearing her suggestions, and if there was any chance he’d let her work on the place.
When Mona came back, Arianna expected a bottle of aspirin. Instead, she held a bottle of a different sort. She opened it and Arianna guessed it to be rum by the smell.
“We work hard and deserve a nip to relax.”
“Does the owner know about this?” Arianna asked, glancing around to see if all the curtains were pulled.
Mona smiled as she poured. “He might. I don’t think he cares. After all, he trusts me to count the money up and close the place for him every night. Here.” She pushed a glass across the table. “This’ll cure what ails you.”
For once, Arianna thought twice.
“What’s wrong?” Mona asked. “You don’t drink? You sure look like the kind that does.” She winked as she lifted her glass. “In fact, you look like you’d be a lot of fun out on the town.”
Mona raised her glass. “To women. They’re sure a hell of a lot more reliable than men.” She clinked glasses with Arianna and drank to the strange toast.
“What do you mean by that?”
Mona grunted ugly. “Been married twice. Both of ‘em turned out to be lazy bastards. Cheated on me, both did. Can’t trust a single one.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Last one ran up a tab at the deli and the hardware and left it on me. Just took off one afternoon. Not a word, not a note, nothing. Just gone.” She poured quickly and drank again. “If you think I was devastated, I wasn’t. Didn’t cry a tear. In fact, I was relieved.” Mona wasted no time with a third refill. “You married?”
“I said I had a family,” Arianna said, keeping her glass close.
“That doesn’t mean you’re still married. Luckily, I hadn’t wound up pregnant by either of my husbands, or I’d be stuck with that, too. They wouldn’t have taken the kid with them when they left, that’s for sure.”
Arianna thought of her own children with a deep ache. She missed the way Savrene took the brush from her hand and tried to do it hersel
f, big girl that she was, and the way Samuel would lay his head in her lap when he was tired. And little Felicity. Never had she seen a more headstrong infant or one that craved love and attention as much as that baby. Her eyes misted, she finished her drink and reached for more.
“I have three children,” she said, clearing her throat.
“What does your husband do?” Mona asked and one after another, she kept pouring, seeming to be eager to blur reality as fast as possible.
It took another hard gulp before Arianna could speak of Caleb. “He’s a farmer,” she said and kept her eyes low.
Mona’s nose wrinkled. “A farmer? In the city?”
“No. We live… he lives on the edge of Rockport. I’m staying here with friends.”
“Oh,” Mona said, eyebrows arched. “You’re split then?”
Pour. Gulp. Gulp. “Only temporarily,” Arianna said and growing desperate to push aside fierce regret and the ache of missing him began to keep pace with Mona.
“What’d he do?” she asked with a sloppy grin.
Arianna shook her head slowly, thinking. She could easily lie and make something up about Caleb that was worthy of her leaving. Mona would never know.
“He didn’t do anything.” Arianna raised her head. “It was me.”
Mona laughed. “What on earth did you do, then?”
Arianna sat back and stared. “I was horrible. That’s what. Just… horrible. To him, to his mother… to everyone.” She held up her glass. “Let’s toast to something different. To horrible people. Man or woman, you can’t trust horrible people.”
***
She lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, a bandage around her head. Arianna had no expression, despite the pain. A tear rolled down the side of her head. She was trying to decide if she was glad that she woke up. The nurses had been in every hour through the night to wake her.
That’s what they did for someone with a head injury, they explained. If they didn’t, sometimes the patient wouldn’t wake up at all. The woman next to her hadn’t woken up yet. She’d heard them talking about her late in the night.
She found out her husband had a mistress, they whispered. She drank a bottle of rum, followed by a bottle of sleeping tonic. The woman had lived through the night and the nurses said that was a good sign.
In a large room with nine other women, she was somewhere in the middle. Some had had surgery, some had accidents, some were just sick.
She didn’t have a clear memory of the crash. Only fragmented bits.
Driving along, Mona told her she was weaving. Slow blink.
She started laughing. For the life of her she didn’t know what she’d found so funny. Had Mona said something else? Slow blink.
She turned a corner. She remembered the funny feeling in her stomach, like the one you have when you’re falling. The car slid in a wide circle across the intersection. Tires squealing. Slow blink.
A split second of fear when she saw the oncoming truck.
Her first solid memory was the previous afternoon. Shannon was sitting by her bed. Too embarrassed to say anything, she moved her hand and Shannon took it. She was kind enough not to talk, except to say she’d had her fill of sitting by the bedside of unconscious loved ones. When the doctor came in, he checked her head and gave his official diagnosis that she was awake, badly bruised, and finally sober.
How very profound, she remembered thinking, staring up at his stern face.
She’s lucky she wasn’t killed. She’s lucky she didn’t break any bones. She’s lucky Mona crawled away unharmed. Lucky the truck driver pulled her from the burning car.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Shannon nodded the whole time.
Arianna stared at him, unmoved while he drove this point home in a fatherly lecture.
They’d keep her another night and release her tomorrow. The way he said it irked her.
Release her like you’d release an animal back into the wild.
His statement and his obvious judgment humiliated her.
“You humiliate yourself,” she whispered, blinked, and another tear rolled down, catching on the bandage. She’d hated plenty of people in her life. Most of them for selfish, petty reasons. But she hated herself more than all of them combined for honest reasons.
Before she ever lost control of the car, she’d lost control of herself, her life, lost her husband and children. Worst of all, she had no idea how to back herself out of this mess. It only seemed to get worse as each day went by. She moved her eyes around the hospital ward.
“I guess it can’t get much worse than this,” she whispered. Her eyes stopped on the comatose woman beside her and she rethought that statement.
She heard a nurse whispering at the main door. She closed her eyes.
Were they talking about her again, she wondered. How much had Shannon told them?
Oh, yes, this is my friend. She’s gone a bit batty, you see. She drinks like a vagrant and her husband just kicked her out. I’m caring for her now. Like a stray mutt, I took her in, poor thing.
When she opened her eyes, she sucked in a breath of surprise and it hurt her battered ribs.
He stood by the curtain, holding his flat cap in his hands, staring at her. Unlike the last time she’d seen him, he didn’t look angry. Tense, perhaps. Concerned, definitely. Distant, absolutely.
“Shannon telegrammed yesterday,” Caleb said quietly. “I got here as fast as I could.”
She clamped her jaw, fighting sudden tears. “Why?” she croaked. God knew she didn’t deserve his concern. Not after what she’d put him through.
“I wanted to see that you were alright. All Shannon said was…” He glanced around. A few women were sitting up in bed, staring, listening intently. He yanked the curtain, then pulled the chair a few feet farther from the bed but didn’t sit down.
Arianna dropped her eyes. She shouldn’t expect affection, she reminded herself.
“All the telegram said was that you’d been in an accident and you hadn’t woken up.”
“I woke up yesterday afternoon,” she said.
He nodded, clearly holding back his next statement or question. She struggled to sit up, wincing and whimpering as she pulled her elbows underneath her. She sat back slowly, grimacing.
“What hurts?” he asked, frowning.
“Everything,” she said, closing her eyes, her hands cupping her sides.
“Let me see.” The blanket was low on her lap. She pulled up the edge of her hospital gown past her stomach. Over her ribs, the entire left side was a mass of dark, angry bruises.
Caleb blew out a hard breath. She lowered the gown and opened her eyes.
He twisted the cap, still wrestling with words. With a jerk, he sat down and leaned over his elbows.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I stayed after my shift with Mona. We were having drinks, sharing our pathetic life stories. She’d had too much, asked me to drive. Apparently, I had too much as well.”
It was awkward. And it was irritating to Caleb that after this many years, having been through so much together, it had to be awkward.
“I got your letters,” he said.
“Did you? I wondered. You never answered.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“How are my babies?” she asked, lips trembling.
“They’re fine. Maura has been helping.”
She showed some relief at this. She opened her mouth and closed it quickly. He knew what she wanted to ask and knew she couldn’t.
“They miss you.”
Her face quaked and then she let herself sob a few times.
“I miss them so much,” she said, shaking her head, sniffling.
He’d seen her crumble before. Seen her cry before. Seen her down and out, at her worst. But never had he seen her this low.
“Did you do it on purpose?” he asked with a pained stare.
“What?”
“Did you drive into that truck on purpose? There seem
s to be some question about that.”
“Who’s questioning?”
“The nurses. The doctor. They talked to your friend and she told them you were very upset before you got in the car. Said something about having nothing to live for.”
She drew one knee up slowly. “I wasn’t serious. Or… even if I was, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
He knew she’d sunk to a new low. But was it far enough?
“Have you found the bottom of the bottle?”
She almost looked like she wanted to laugh. “I found the bottom of everything,” she whispered.
He hesitated, pulled in a breath, and then asked, “Have you seen him again?”
“No.”
He looked up. His stare demanded the truth.
“Not since the night you found me. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened. I never even kissed him. I swear to you,” she finished in a whisper.
Caleb felt his blood throb harder in his temples with every reference to he and him. “Then why? If it wasn’t for that, why?”
She searched for an honest answer. Dug deep in her soul for the truth. The more she dug, the further back she had to go. He was patient as she wound back to a starting point.
“We were on the porch before Ethel died. All three of us girls. Claire was sad, talking about how things would never be like they were before. I laughed at her. But the truth is, I hadn’t really accepted it, either. A part of me always thought that somehow, someway, things would go back to the way they were. And then Ethel started screaming, and I was already so tired, so sick of it. And with the realization that this is life now and that it would never get any better, the struggling, Ethel screaming, the children screaming, busy from sun up to sun down, aching feet and back, no fun, no romance, just work… something in me snapped.”
The nurse came around the curtain unannounced, smiled at each of them and placed a lunch tray on the side table. Arianna looked at it but had no appetite. She waited until the nurse left.
“When we had our girls night, we went to a club I’d heard about. I walked in and it felt like I was transported through time. It was fun and loud and busy. I could dance and be free. I didn’t have to worry about Ethel, didn’t have to chase after children, didn’t have to worry about anything. I could pretend it was all just a very bad dream. I went too far that night.” She glanced up at him. He watched her without expression, his hands gripping his cap. “As you saw when Maura brought me home. I swore I wouldn’t go that far again. And to my credit, I didn’t.” She took a breath, preparing her words. Truthful as they were, they may be harsh enough for Caleb to walk out and never look back. “After Ethel died, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror for how I had treated her. I felt responsible and part of me was relieved and I hated myself for that, too. I desperately needed to forget what a horrible person I’d been. Having J—” Her eyes darted up. She’d just leave names out of it. “Having that freedom and attention was addictive. That’s why nothing ever happened. I didn’t care about him. I only wanted to pretend. And to forget.”
Purling Road - the Complete Second Season: Episodes 1-10 Page 20