Mac said, “No trouble at all, really.”
And then she spotted me and cried, “April! Hello, sweetheart, for heaven sake. Did you go meet him, too? Honestly, you boys, letting April lug that heavy pack. Well, come on inside.”
So Tom had not mentioned I was in Minnesota with him and was the reason he’d been there. But he had a Tom answer, wrapped his arms around his mother, kissed her cheek, told her not to worry, he was all right, and tomorrow he needed to go get x-rays. He even added a low grunt of pain, the stinker, and his poor mother all but burst into tears.
Fortunately I didn’t need to answer because Mac said, “Thanks, we can’t stop, we’re running a little late.”
He didn’t say where we were going that made us late, but about that time Tom’s father arrived at the door and in a swirl of questions, both parents talking at the same time, we escaped.
Mac and I got back into the car, gave cheery waves and smiles, and were out of there.
“I wish they’d treat him like an adult,” Mac muttered.
“I wish I had parents like that,” I said.
Mac gave me a brief, unreadable look, then maintained the sort of silence that was not encouraging so I kept my mouth shut. I was not intentionally working on a grudge. I pasted on my smile until we reached my place.
When he parked out front, I asked, “Is Cyd home?”
“Should be.”
“You coming in?”
“No.”
“Okay, well, thanks for all the help. It was really nice of you to provide the tickets.” See, I tried to be friendly.
“April. Listen to me.” He turned to face me and there was no smile, no nice gap teeth showing to make him human. Could have chiseled his face from granite. “This has to be some coincidence.”
He held up his hand to keep me from speaking, totally unnecessary because my mind went blank. I hadn’t a clue what he meant and so had no reply forming. Sure, I knew he’d hoped we’d find nothing, and that didn’t earn him Brownie points in our friendship. But we’d found proof. I thought he would accept proof. Didn’t have to like it. And now here he was, literal minded Mac, still blaming my imagination.
“This accident which included a couple of movie actors running into the woman’s brother, it’s the sort of thing that gets glamorized and retold in those magazines that end up by the checkout counter,” he said. “The story probably got picked up in some ‘remember when’ issue, maybe featured on a cover.”
Did he think we’d made up something? “Mrs. Thornton knew Millie’s family. She had the obituary. We saw it.”
“I understand. It did happen. There was a Millie Pedersen,” he agreed. “Maybe last summer, maybe ten years ago, you saw the story someplace and it stuck in your subconscious. It doesn’t mean you were Millie Pedersen.”
Ho-kay. Now I had more to say. “So that’s why you gave us the plane tickets, because all this time you haven’t believed a word I’ve said. And you hoped we’d go back to Minnesota and find out there had never been such a person.”
I heard myself going shrill and fought to stay calm.
“April, the past doesn’t matter. Obviously there was a Millie Pedersen. You found evidence. I understand. But that doesn’t mean you’re her reincarnation. It only means that somehow you heard about her. And you’ve mixed up reality with a story.”
What had Tom said? Something about knowing I never confused imagination with reality.
“Thanks for the ride.” I meant it in several ways because that’s all Mac’s friendship was, a ride. Nothing real or stable. He’d sent me off on what he’d hoped would be a washout.
I opened the car door and started to get out. Like Tom had said, I could hold a grudge.
Mac reached over and touched my arm. “April, do me one favor.”
I didn’t turn to look back at him. I did say, “What?”
“You think you’re in love with Graham Berkold because he reminds you of a love story you once heard. He’s married. He’s trouble.”
“Ya think so?” I muttered.
“I know so. And he’s going to hurt you. For your own sake, get over him.”
I slammed the door and marched up the walk, too furious to answer. Anything I could think of to say right then would be way past taking back. Mac, Tom and Cyd were the only family I had and I didn’t want to destroy that.
Cyd was waiting for me in the kitchen, wine bottle on the table and ravioli in a pan on the stove. Smelled wonderful. I dumped my gear on the floor of my room, kicked off my boots and padded in to join her. By then she had our plates served.
She took one look at me and poured the wine.
“I love Mac but he’s a bastard,” I said, then took a big gulp from the glass she handed to me.
Cyd laughed. “How’s Tom?”
“Kind of beat up. He’s going in for x-rays tomorrow. Did a job on his knee. And he’s got bruised ribs. Probably ought to get those x-rayed, too. He went down really hard on a patch of ice. Hey, your down jacket was a lifesaver.”
“Good, I don’t get to wear it much around here. So tell me what all you found and what mean old Macbeth has done this time.”
Between forkfuls of ravioli, I told her what we’d learned, and Mac’s reaction. “For some reason he’s mad at Tommy. Made some remark about him growing up.”
“He thinks we are all irresponsible.”
“Apparently he didn’t really want to help me when he offered those plane tickets. He only wanted to prove I was wrong.”
“You think?”
“Looks like it. I mean, there it all was, really plain and exactly matching what I’ve seen, so what’s his problem? Is he so set against the idea of reincarnation? I never would have figured him for religious objections.”
Cyd said slowly, “I think he told it to you in his last bossy instruction, April. I think Macbeth is really pissed about Berkold.”
“But why?”
“Now you’re going to be mad at me.”
“No, I’m not. Okay. Should I be?”
She let out a heavy sigh, downed a gulp of wine, put both elbows on the table and looked me in the eyes. “April, you know Mac, he thinks he’s big daddy for the rest of us inferior and not too bright folk. He doesn’t mean to be obnoxious, but lord, he can be. Anyhow, he asked around about Berkold and apparently the man has a history of brief affairs. Women love him, men detest him.”
“And that’s Macbeth’s business because?” My voice came out a lot sharper than I meant it to be.
“See, I knew you’d be upset. I am not going to say another word about this. What you do is up to you. Hey, you and Tom in a quaint hotel, umm, that sounds fun and don’t even try to tell me you took separate rooms.”
“Sure, really romantic, even if we forget about Graham. Actually, it’s a good thing I do have Graham because if I’d gone on a trip with Tommy and expected romance, wow, talk about holidays from hell. He bashed his knee the first day we got there and I spent the next two days and nights playing nursemaid, doling out painkillers and sleeping pills. Worse, I had to be chauffeur because he couldn’t drive.”
I went on to give her all the details and we ended up laughing and refilling wine glasses.
CHAPTER 26
“Maybe I should look for a job on campus,” I told Tom.
“Now who’s stalking?”
Poor Tom, he’d had twenty-three messages on his voice mail when he checked it, twenty-three in the four days we were gone, well, actually, three days plus two nights on airplanes and two nights in Minnesota. You’d think she’d have worn out her thumbs from punching in his number but no, Sandra continued to phone every couple of hours.
“Plus,” he said, “now I’ve got Deirdre in my cubicle bringing me cokes, potato chips, you name it, every ten minutes.”
“That’s sweet. She’s looking out for you.”
The swelling around his knee was from torn ligaments and the x-rays had confirmed damage that was going to take a while to mend. No hairli
ne crack. And no broken ribs.
Plus, lucky boy, the doctor agreed that he was well enough to go to work as long as he kept his ass in a chair and didn’t do too much standing or walking. Now Tom was into cranky recovery time. He could remove the brace and bend the knee enough to drive. That’s how he made it to my place in the evening to hide out. He had spotted Sandra parked across the street from his parents’ house.
“Maybe you could be a threesome, you and Deirdre and Sandra,” I said, all perky and cheerful.
From where he was stretched out on the couch, he threw a pillow at me. I was sitting on the floor with my clean laundry spread around me, carefully folding items into stacks. I held out a handful of socks.
“Make sock balls,” I said.
He stretched out his arm, took the socks, dropped them on his chest and proceeded to separate them and roll them into neat little balls.
“You are so domestic, Tommy. You ought to get married. And think how happy you’d make Sandra. She’s a big wedding, lotsa frosting girl.”
“And she’ll make some guy very happy. Not me.”
“Okay, how about Deirdre?”
“Oh honey. Deirdre wouldn’t even be a fun weekend.”
I gave him a firm stare. Somebody had to talk sense to the boy. “Is it the women or is it marriage you’re avoiding?”
He rolled another sock ball and apparently that took considerable concentration because he didn’t answer for at least a minute. “I’m no prize so I can’t blame the women. How about you? Why don’t you get married?”
“If I ever fall madly in love, I will.” And then, because I was madly in love, I had to add, “If he’s available.”
“My women are way too available. I should have stayed in Minnesota.”
“Something about low salaries? You mentioned that,” I reminded him.
“Probably not great job opportunities in that town. Except at the coffee shop. They could use a new counter person. One who knows the town has a newspaper.”
“And, gosh, a library.”
He was right about the stalking, though. If I turned up as a file clerk in the English department office, Graham probably wouldn’t be pleased.
“As for the U, it takes months to get hired on and they have waiting lists of new graduates for every opening.”
“It’s a bad idea,” I agreed.
I finished folding my laundry, leaned over him with the folded stack in my arms and let him pile the sock balls on top. After I put the laundry away, I left Tom on the couch with his leg propped up while I cleaned up the mess we’d made in the kitchen all by our twosome. Cyd and Mac had gone out to dinner somewhere.
Settling down on the floor, I leaned back against the couch to watch TV.
“Are you staying all night?” I asked.
“Got a better idea. I think I’ll leave my car out front and get Mac to drive me home.”
“Okay, but why?”
“I don’t think she’ll do a stakeout with my car gone. I am trying to confuse the hell out of her.”
“Tom, what did you do to this woman? Propose?”
“No, I did not,” he wailed.
“Tell her you loved her?”
“April.” He put a hand on the top of my head and turned me to face him. “You know I go brain dead in bed. How do I know what I told her?”
“Celibate, that’s the only cure for you.”
“Or it might be fatal,” he muttered.
The phone rang in the kitchen, but with the TV on, it took me three rings to figure out the noise wasn’t part of the TV show. I jumped up, ran into the next room and grabbed it and shouted hello.
“April darling,” Graham said.
I dropped my voice. “Oh.”
“I can’t talk just now, but are you free tomorrow? Thought we might take a drive out to the cottage.”
Graham had made excuses, not phoned when he said he would, avoided me. Or was I wrong? His life was complicated, I knew that. I also knew Macbeth was right, I should drop Graham. But all he had to do was say my name and my insides melted. If there was a sensible approach to my relationship with Graham, I didn’t know it. Maybe like all things, time would solve the problems.
I wanted to say I was busy but instead I said, “That sounds fun.”
When I returned to the living room, Tom said, “The boyfriend?”
“Don’t tell Macbeth.”
Tom looked at me, his face a blank. “I’m not your keeper, lovey. Wouldn’t dream of telling you to take up celibacy.”
“Touché. You don’t think I’m being stupid?”
He grinned. “How would I know stupid? If you figure out how to make a relationship work, clue me in. Then I’ll dump my stalkers and marry you.”
“If you go around proposing all the time, no wonder you’ve got stalkers.”
“I never propose to anyone but you. At least, uh, not that I remember.”
CHAPTER 27
Standing at the bottom of the beach path, where the dead grass bent around the rocks in windworn rivers, Graham leaned his back against a dying madrona. He wore a belted jacket of dark green leather with the collar turned up around his wind-tanned face.
“I phoned you last week and a man answered and said you were out of town.”
“Did you leave a message?” Because I certainly hadn’t received one.
“Darling, I didn’t know who he was. Could have been a husband you haven’t mentioned.”
“Must have been Mac. He’s Cyd’s boyfriend.” And he had guessed that the caller was Graham, had dear Macbeth, and not mentioned the phone call. So that’s what had triggered his attitude.
“Ah. And where were you?”
“I flew back to Minnesota and guess what? There really was a Millie Pedersen. I met an old woman who remembered her, remembered she’d run away to Hollywood and been killed in a car crash.”
He almost dropped his glass. He definitely dropped his jaw. His reaction was gratifying, kind of what I’d expected from Macbeth and not received. “No! Honestly?”
“I described Millie’s looks and the woman said I was dead on.”
“I’ll be damned. That was certainly adventurous of you. But I had no idea you were planning a trip.”
Umm, explain the whole thing, including Tom? Maybe not. Instead I said, “Cyd’s boyfriend had free air miles he couldn’t use so he gave me a ticket. It kind of happened spontaneously, something about a time limit on the mileage.”
“That was lucky. And how did you find this woman who knew Millie and, good grief, she must be ancient.”
“I think it takes very tough genes to live in that climate.”
And then I told him about the helpful librarian. And my visit to Mrs. Thornton. And the grave stones of Millie’s parents. And the obituary. I still didn’t mention Tom.
“So there really was a Millie. I suppose that means there really was a Laurence. Which certainly means you and I were meant by all the fates to find each other. But then, we’ve always known that,” he said.
“Yes, but why?” I wailed. “I don’t know what I am supposed to do with this information. Or why I was meant to find you. Do you?”
He pulled me into a hug. “April, I wish I could answer you with a promise. If I could, I’d promise you all the things I want for you.”
“And what would you want for me?”
The fine laugh lines fanned out from his eyes and around his mouth. “Ah, lovely April. My wishes are all selfish. I would take you around the world to show you off everywhere, in New York, in London, in Athens, you’d love Athens, and we would walk the wall of China and kiss in the gardens at Kyoto. Now then don’t laugh at me, vixen!”
I leaned against him, whispering in his ear, “I don’t want the world. I want you.”
His arms tightened around me. “You have me. I am always yours.”
All right. I wasn’t Millie/Silver, or maybe I was but if so, I was a liberated version, not shy, not afraid, not easy to intimidate. And so I went ri
ght ahead and asked him.
“What about your wife?”
He held me away from himself, his hands on my shoulders, met my gaze with a slow smile. “My wife. Oh yes. My wife. She hasn’t been that for a long time.”
“You’re still married to her.”
“Well, yes. Divorce is a complicated process. And expensive. And I am a professor and there’s a reason professors are often portrayed wearing tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows. The original poor man’s mending job. If we divorce I’d own half a mortgage and that’s about it.”
“That’s why you stay with her? Because you can’t afford a divorce?”
He shook his head. “No, I can live with poor. But what do I do about her? I’m her support. My job covers her hospitalization. Without me, she’d be sitting on a barstool until somebody carted her off to a drunk tank. I know this all sounds very unromantic, my dear, but life is. And I feel responsible. Somewhere along the line I must have missed a chance to help her. I keep turning it over and over in my mind and I keep thinking that at some point in our marriage, I failed her.”
He knew this when he first started seeing me. No, not fair, I’d been the one who followed him into the Greek restaurant one day, and wound our fates together by telling him about Laurence.
Graham hadn’t come looking for me. He hadn’t stopped me on the street or even tried to pick me up the first time we saw each other, me dripping water in the entrance of the building where he had his office, him pausing to tuck his papers into a plastic bag before going out into the rain. That’s when we’d first met, our eyes had met, he’d smiled. And I had been too stunned to smile back because I knew his smile from my memories of Laurence.
So maybe it was me who had failed him by involving him in my life. I leaned into his arms, wrapped myself around him, kissed his throat, caught his face between my hands, pulled his mouth down to mine, claimed him, covered him with kisses until stumbling and laughing, he pulled me back into the cottage.
With every bit of passion in me, I told him nothing mattered, nothing at all, except that he love me. He could be married to a harem, I didn’t care, because he belonged to me, was all mine.
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