“Sorry about the wine quality,” Paige said. “I’m trying to save as much money as I can.”
Deirdre dismissed her apology with a shake of her head and an enthusiastic sip of the wine. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “You’re going to have a slew of new expenses to worry about. You’re right to be frugal. Will you start Temple in the spring, or wait until next fall?”
Paige froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. Deirdre laughed. “Sweetie, I’m a Wiccan, not a psychic. You left your acceptance letter out on the coffee table. I saw it when I picked up the candles. Does Al know?”
“He knows I went to Philadelphia last weekend,” Paige said. “I borrowed his car.”
“Where did you stay?”
“With my friend Chloe. She lives in a huge house in an area of the city called Chestnut Hill. I’m going to move into her third floor until I can afford my own place.”
Deirdre set her fork down and sighed. “Things sure got exciting around here when the mysterious Paige Davenport came to town.”
Paige felt her lips curling into a smirk. “I suppose she was amusing.”
“How did you find the city after all this time away?”
Paige thought for a moment. “Chloe’s world was chaotic and beautiful, and I felt safe there, but returning to Philadelphia didn’t feel like a homecoming. More like returning to somewhere familiar. I might not even settle there for long.”
Deirdre brightened. “Think you’ll move back here?”
“Oh, hell no.”
Between the recent rain and the mud and the wet autumn air, Paige felt as if she was living in a river. Then on Saturday the air turned warmer, and sticky, and the breezes blowing though her open windows seemed to wrap around her skin and cling to it. Her hair hung in damp waves and as she lay on the couch under the ceiling fan she peeled it from her neck and spread it over the arm of the sofa and scratched the mosquito bites on her ankles. The afternoon was dripping by and Paige set her journal down when she heard a car pull up the driveway. A car door opened and slammed shut, and she swung her tanned legs over the edge of the couch and smoothed her shorts, already shaking her head at who could be coming to visit. What could be wrong? Who was drunk, who wanted to go for a run, who was in a crisis and decided she should do something about it? These thoughts made her smile. She threw open the door as the bell rang, and her smile faded as a clammy breeze wafted in, carrying a familiar scent of cologne, applied too liberally. Standing on her porch, in his usual polo shirt and designer jeans, his eyes hidden behind his Ray Bans, was David.
Chapter 27
David’s heavy, silver watch was visible on his tanned wrist, but his hands were in his pockets, so Paige couldn’t see if he was wearing his wedding ring. She had taken hers off a few weeks after he had dropped her in the front yard, a day that suddenly seemed like an exhaustingly long time ago.
Even hidden behind sunglasses, David looked a bit stopped in his tracks. He looked her up and down, and she waited, unsure of how to feel or react. She too was stopped in her tracks. He carefully removed his sunglasses and his eyes traveled from her face, slightly browned by running for miles in the sun, to her hair that was much longer and wavy, no draping glossy sheets or sharp bangs. She wore a worn, green tank top and cutoff jean shorts. Her fingernails were unpolished. Probably slightly chewed. Her feet were browned and bare, not crammed into high-heeled sandals. David was visibly confused. Paige chuckled inwardly, thinking oh, how he detests the natural look. But knowing that to be the case, was she imagining a rather predatory glint in his eye, which was making her feel a bit like a gazelle?
“What do you want, David?” she finally blurted, though that was not at all what she wanted to say. Indeed, there was a selection of at least four choice words that Al would chastise her for uttering, that she wanted to hurl at David that very moment.
David straightened and composed himself to the cool, charming attorney again. “May I come in,” he asked, eyebrows arched.
“If you must,” Paige said. She turned her back and kicked the door open wide enough for him to enter, before walking through to the kitchen. “Is it 5:00 yet?” she called over her shoulder.
“It is somewhere in the world,” David called back, checking his watch. “4:00 here. But, we’re going to need a drink, so please. On with it.”
Paige bristled at his imperious tone, even though she knew he was attempting levity. Her back was to him as she unlocked the liquor cabinet and retrieved a bottle of Chardonnay. She felt her body stiffening as she heard him pull out a chair and sit down. Even her fingers struggled to grasp the neck of the bottle so she set it on the counter and busied herself with wine glasses, a few cubes of ice from the freezer, finally pouring and mentally shaking herself out.
David had easily made himself comfortable at the table, gazing with distaste at the kitchen, the one room that had not yet been updated. “Haven’t gotten to this room, yet?”
Paige sat down and reached to set his glass in front of him, trying to keep her hand steady. Trying to keep her hand from tossing his wine in his face. “No, not yet,” she said. “My deadbeat ex husband hasn’t sent me any money in a while, so I had to halt the renovations. Cheers,” she added, gulping from her own glass.
He half raised his glass with a snide look on his face and then took a sip and set it down. His expression relaxed and turned contrite. “I’ll write you a check now.”
Paige ignored this gesture. She looked at him bitterly, truly seeing him, the man she married. They could have been at that table at Café Rouge, sipping their wine, terse and unforgiving, all over again. Paige felt this regression deeply. No, she thought. No. I’m not going back there. She watched his lips moving, his gaze shifting about the room critically, and she felt the ghost of Paige Davenport, long excised but back again, shifting in and out of her, Paige Scott, like an image moving in and out of focus, becoming two, then one, then two again. Paige wanted to slap at her own cheeks to snap out of it.
“So,” she began, too loudly.
“Paige, what are you doing?” David asked. Paige felt her hands patting at her face. She moved them to her wine glass, nervously ticking her fingernails against the stem.
David sighed and stared at his lap. He looked up from under his forehead, not raising his head completely. “Okay,” he said. He took another sip of wine. “I needed to see how you were doing.”
“You did, really?” Paige asked. “It’s been over a year and you haven’t yet needed to know that. Not a call or an email, just a few measly checks because Howard Hackney, Esquire made you do the right thing. So. Enough of that. Why, David? Why did you do it?”
David pushed back from the table. “You were killing me,” he said, his voice rising. “You were a waste of space, just sucking up oxygen, and all the energy around you, but contributing nothing. Everything that you did was like a gesture, merely to show you were doing something. Nothing was real, nothing was from the heart.” He ran his hands through his hair and laughed, wild and bitter. “What were your life aspirations? Who did you love, what did you care about? Not me, certainly! But yet, you were latched onto me so tight you were suffocating. It’s really horrible to have something wrapped around your neck that hates you.”
Paige was suddenly crestfallen. “I’m sorry,” she said. She meant it.
David’s head jerked up. He looked at her face incredulously. “For what?”
“For being that person,” she sighed. “For not knowing how to be a real person. But really, did you have to go this far? Why didn’t you just file for divorce?”
He shook his head, thinking. “I’m not sure. I guess when you have to rip a tick or a leech off of you, you tear it off and you fling it as far as you can.”
“A tick? Wow, that’s nice,” Paige grumbled.
His mouth twitched. “But you were someone I had once really cared about, so I couldn’t just fling randomly, I had to fling you into a house. You needed a roof over your head.”
�
��It was leaking until recently,” Paige said.
David laughed, a genuine David devilish chortle. “I had to find the biggest challenge I could. The rest of the place seems to be coming along, though, with the exception of this horrendous room. Wow.”
“Speaking of which,” Paige bit back, “Let’s take care of that now. How about that check to cover the kitchen upgrade?” She rapped on the table with one finger.
David nodded and reached for the wine bottle to top off their glasses.
Paige jammed her hands into her pockets and propped one foot up on the table. “I was that bad, huh?”
“Even your shopping was perfunctory. At least the other ladies-who-lunch on the Square were genuinely interested in that.”
“And they were such genuinely interesting people. Speaking of which, how is Simone?”
“Not sure. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Oh come on, David.”
His brow furrowed. “Paige, what are you talking about?”
“You two aren’t an item?”
“Are you kidding? The Ice Queen? How could you think that I would be with her? Ever?”
Paige slouched in her chair, feeling foolish. “I don’t know, she sort of suggested it, right after I got here. So…Never?”
David leaned forward and grabbed her hand. “Not in a million years,” he said, looking her dead in the eye.
She pulled her hand away. "Not that I care,” she added, childishly.
“Of course not.” His eyes laughed at her.
They regarded each other across the table.
“You seem better,” David said.
“How condescendingly thoughtful of you,” Paige said.
“You know what I mean.”
She did.
“Do you want me to drive you back to Philadelphia?” David asked. “You can stay with one of your friends until you find a job and a place.”
“What about the house?”
David shrugged, glancing around. “It’ll sell, eventually.”
Paige stared at him. “Meaning, you’ll sell it, and you’ll pocket the money.”
David looked confused. “Yeah, what else would I do with it?”
Paige drew a deep breath. She would handle this later with Hackney’s assistance. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t have any friends in Philly except for you,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’ll get back on my own, eventually.”
David nodded and looked at his watch.
Paige’s gaze moved upward, checking the air above them for demons. There were none. There were no more explanations or regrets to air. There was just a door closing between two empty rooms.
The front door opened and slammed shut, and Bryce appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Paige, who is this finely-dressed gentleman?” he asked, placing one hand on his hip. He was wearing his usual torn blue jeans, black leather vest with no shirt, spiked dog collar around his neck. His hair is getting too long, Paige thought.
Paige extended her hand, palm up, as if she was a presenter on a game show. “The ex,” she said. “David, this is Starfire.”
“Pleasure,” David replied, extending his hand. They shook.
“Nice ride in the driveway,” Bryce remarked.
“Thanks.”
Bryce folded his arms and squinted at David a moment longer, as if finally making the connection as to whom it actually was. His eyes widened and he turned to Paige. “This is the husband who dumped you in the driveway last year? Is he staying over? I guess he’ll have to use my room because I can’t imagine he’ll be staying in yours.” His voice rose an octave on the word imagine.
“Yes,” Paige said. “If you don’t mind.”
Bryce winked at David. “Sweetie, I know you wish I would stay, too, but I’ll skedaddle to my man’s house tonight.” Bryce swished to the kitchen stairs and then turned. “By the way, I hope you brought running gear. House rules, if you stay here, you have to run with her in the morning. No exceptions.” He disappeared up the stairs.
David picked up his wine glass and drained it. “Shit,” he muttered, clapping it back down on the table. “Let’s go get some dinner. I have paperwork for you to sign.”
Paige rolled her eyes. “I think I know the kind of paperwork you mean,” she said. “But before I sign anything I am going to have my attorney review it all, and there will be changes to be made, I’m sure.”
He looked impatient. “What changes?”
“David, you’re going to have to wait and see. I’m really not sure yet.”
He pushed back his chair and slapped his hands to his knees, jocularity returning. “We’ll talk,” he declared. “We’ll eat, talk turkey, get divorced, and be merry! Think Moonbeam wants to come along?”
“Just call him Bryce. And yes, he is always up for a free meal.”
The next morning was finally cooler, crisp and sweet-smelling as an autumn apple just picked from a tree. The sunlight shone strong and warm through the early chill in the air. Dingbat and his girlfriend had stopped by looking for bread and Paige fed them. A rooster strutted over from the neighbor’s yard to join the impromptu breakfast. Paige threw him a few crusts and then shooed all of the birds on their way before they could crap all over everything. Paige had alerted the Running Club that they were on their own, and going forward she would join them when she could, so she was able to enjoy the quiet solitude for a while.
She sat on the front steps, smirking into her coffee at the stir she and David had caused at Darnell’s the night before. She was fairly certain that Bryce had tipped someone off that they would be coming, and who David was, in case they hadn’t remembered him from when he had first visited the town to buy the house. Bryce was a drama queen at heart, and eagerly anticipated being on stage with her.
There was a ripple of a toe going into a calm pool when they had entered. People were waiting. Darnell was grinning from ear to ear. He and the patrons watched the group walk to their table and eat their meal, tittering about it at their tables like squirrels. Bryce preened and made excuses to get up and sweep around the bar. There might as well have been a red carpet stretching from their table to the bathroom.
Al was there helping out, and he stopped working to watch their table, leaning back with his arms folded across his chest, eyes half closed, chewing a toothpick. Paige pretended not to notice, and he didn’t approach their table to be introduced. She waved coyly at him from the door as they left.
Paige hopped through a few jumping jacks to warm up, and stretched her arms up as far as she could toward the blue sky, inhaling deeply. She jumped and whirled around when the screen door slammed behind her, and she was surprised to see David on the porch, wearing sneakers, basketball shorts and a tee shirt. He was carrying a mug of coffee.
“Let me just drink some of this and we’ll go,” he said, walking down the porch steps and taking a seat, rubbing his eyes and squinting in the sun. Paige nodded, as if she had expected him to be there to run just because Bryce told him it was the house rule.
David sat sipping his coffee, and then the front door banged opened again and a shirtless Al sauntered out and straight past David, brushing his elbow and jostling coffee onto David’s shirt and lap. He descended the porch steps, as he walked pulling on a tight tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, which kept many muscles on full display.
Al walked up to Paige. “Morning,” he purred, and leaned in to kiss her, slowly, sensually, on the lips. Paige’s hands fluttered in the air, as if that might fan him away, but by the time she collected herself enough to stop him, the kiss was over, and he was hanging back and grinning at her lasciviously.
He moved behind her and massaged her shoulders. “Oh, hey man, I’m Al,” he said, finally acknowledging David, who sat stone still, turning a funny shade of pink.
“Al, this is my ex-husband, David,” Paige stammered, ducking out from under his warm, strong hands, which were turning her legs into jelly. Jelly legs were not good for running.
David s
tood stiffly, equally flustered, and Al strode over to him and stuck out his hand. “Where are my manners,” he drawled, looking down at David. David shook his hand, wordlessly.
Al returned to Paige, and flexed and strutted his way through a few warm-up moves.
David puffed out his chest and bobbed up and down on his tippy-toes. “We running or what?” he barked.
The two men jogged along, each trying to stay a half a foot in front of the other. What dogs, Paige thought, equally amused and disgusted by the transparency of their rivalry – rivalry that had so much less to do with her than a general pissing contest, she understood. She had just reviewed divorce papers with one, and the other kept reeling her in and casting her out. She was finished with the flopping fish routine. Fish no more, she told herself, and pulled ahead of the boys, heart pounding, feeling her power.
They jogged through town. Paige spotted a yellow mass on a distant porch, and considered redirecting the run a few moments too late when she realized that the porch belonged to Bryce’s boyfriend, Sam, and there was a breakfast party there in full swing. About fifteen guests were gathered, all wearing yellow Wells Lake Running Club tee shirts.
As the threesome jogged by, the folks on the porch cheered, raising coffee cups and forkfuls of eggs in salute. David gaped at them and jogged into a lamppost.
Bryce hung over the porch railing. “David, looks like Al is in better shape than you. Better start hitting the gym, honey!”
Al showered first and came downstairs dressed in cargo shorts and a white tee shirt. He didn’t acknowledge David, who was hunkered on the couch monitoring his pulse.
“See you this afternoon,” Al called to Paige as she emerged from the kitchen with glasses of ice water. Then he was gone, and Paige was left facing David again, alone.
“I’m going to go shower and then I’m hitting the road,” David said, wincing as he tried to stand.
“Great,” Paige replied, a bit too quickly. “I mean, of course take your time, though.”
Running Against Traffic Page 24