“I left you a check on the table here for the kitchen,” David said, and hobbled up the stairs, emitting guttural grunts of pain. Paige set the water glasses down on the dining room table, waited until he was out of sight, then snatched up her purse and sprinted to the coffee table to grab the check. She would walk to the bank and deposit it the second David was in his car and around the first bend in the road. The trip back to Philadelphia was long, and he was a lawyer, and would likely come up with a thousand reasons, on the drive back, why she really shouldn’t get that money.
David flipped his sunglasses down from his head over his eyes and picked up his overnight bag. He looked around, his nose wrinkling slightly as he took one last look at Paige’s corner of Wells Lake. “Well,” he said, “don’t dawdle on that paperwork. Get your lawyer to look at it soon. We all have lives to get on with.” He ran a hand through his damp hair, patting it into place. Paige marveled at his vanity, catching him glancing at his reflection in the SUV window as he did so. She thought she even saw him smile at what he saw. Then he checked his watch again and tapped two fingers to his forehead in mock salute. “Well,” he said again. “See you around the city, I guess, if you ever get back there.”
“Right-o,” Paige said, folding her arms across her chest. Go away already, she thought. David backed down the driveway and sped off around the bend, leaving her in a cloud of dust, and then silence when the car was far enough away. For a moment, Paige was standing beside her suitcase, in her kitten-heeled sandals, hearing the squeal from the tires as her husband sped away, leaving her in a cloud of dust, completely alone, bewildered, nearly dead. She blinked as her cell phone rang just inside the screen door. She was confused for a moment, then she hauled herself back to the present day and turned to dart up the steps and into the house.
Chapter 28
Paige scooped up her cell phone from the coffee table, her other hand reaching for her purse. She had to get to the bank, pronto. “Hello,” she said, distractedly rummaging around in her bag for her sunglasses.
“Paige, its Simone.” Her voice was higher than Paige had ever heard it.
“What’s up, Simone? Make it quick.” Paige shifted her purse strap over her shoulder and tapped her foot.
“Where’s David?”
“He just left, actually. You missed him by about five minutes. Gotta go, great talking to you,” Paige said, her thumb sliding to the disconnect button.
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Paige,” Simone hissed. Her struggle to return her voice to a cold calm was audible. “We have things to discuss.”
Fascinating, Paige thought. She sounds down right frazzled. She felt her mouth curving into a small smile and she dropped her bag on the dining room table and made herself comfortable in a chair. “Go on, then,” she said, in a challenging tone. “Let’s do this.”
“I received a voicemail from David, saying you did not sign the paperwork. Now I can’t get through to him.”
“He probably turned off his phone because he didn’t want to talk to you,” Paige said. He turned off his phone because he’s afraid of driving and talking on the phone at the same time. Always has been, dummy. Her fingers were involuntarily drumming on the table top. Get on with it.
“Oh, poor Paige,” Simone cooed. “You’re so naïve. You have no clue, do you?”
Paige’s fingers were still and she sat upright. “No clue about what? And what paperwork are you talking about?” She added, tossing some kindling on whatever was smoldering.
“Your divorce paperwork. Didn’t he give it to you?” She sounded uncertain.
“Why would David give me divorce paperwork?” Paige asked, feigning shock.
“Why would…Oh come on, Paige. You know that he’s planning on divorcing you. And who could blame him? You didn’t think he was coming up there to collect you and bring you home, did you? My, but you are dumber than we all thought.”
Paige rolled her eyes. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, firmly. “David and I talked this through, he’s expecting me to sell the house and move back to Philadelphia as soon as it closes.” She stifled a giggle. That was almost the truth, but she knew exactly how Simone would interpret it.
“I don’t believe you,” Simone snapped. “He’s been planning this divorce for years.”
“Years, you say?”
“Yes, darling. David and I have been together for longer than you can imagine. And I know him. He wouldn’t waste another opportunity to leave you.”
Paige took a few deep breaths. That bastard, she thought. What a talented actor he is. Then she cleared her throat. “I don’t believe a word of this,” Paige said, believing every word. “Prove it.”
“I can,” Simone gurgled, unable to contain her excitement. “Remember your birthday trip to Key West, a few years ago? I was there, you idiot. I stayed at the Pier House off of Duval Street for nearly two days, while David told you he was going on an overnight fishing expedition. He couldn’t bear to be away from me for a whole week. And he certainly wasn’t interested in celebrating the date of your birth.”
“Well,” Paige retorted, “That’s all very interesting. It’s not going to stop me from returning to Philadelphia, however.”
“You stay away from us when you do,” Simone warned.
“Anything else?”
“Yes. When David stops feeling sorry for you and gives you the papers, sign them.”
“Mm-hm.” Paige stood and reached for her bag again.
“I’m serious, Paige. I think you know what I am capable of. I suggest you take what I’ve said very seriously.”
“I will,” Paige promised, sincerely. “I will give everything you said very careful consideration. Don’t you worry about that.”
Monday, October 3, 2011
Woooooooooooooooow.
Howard Hackney, Esquire ran David’s divorce papers through his shredder and then leaned forward, placing his elbows on his desk. He pressed is fingers together in a steeple and smiled. “Do you want to call David before I do?” He asked.
Paige grinned at him from her chair on the opposite side of the desk. “Oh yes,” she said. “Absolutely!”
Paige returned to her desk and tried to quiet the popcorn popping in her mind. She stared out her window at the gray bark of the tree and tried to meditate, but she knew that only a long run would bring relief. She turned to her computer and logged onto Facebook, conjuring up courage from thin air. Still faking it after all this time, she thought. Who would have thought that Deirdre’s simple advice would turn out to be so enduringly helpful.
She first typed a quick message to Chloe, thanking her for all that she had offered to do for her. She signed it “Your friend from the attic”, and sent the message off into cyberspace. She thought of Lucien, how easily they had started communicating again after he ran into her with Jeremy. He was open to her friendship then, perhaps he would be still. Lucien loved to be loved, after all. She tapped his name into the search bar and pulled up his profile. She sent a friend request and a message saying hello.
Paige got up to pour herself a cup of coffee and felt light, as if she had cast off a heavy coat. A minute later, as she slid back into her chair, a message came back from Lucien.
Paige! My lord, long time. It must be years since I’ve
seen you out on the town with any married men. And
I see your last name is back to Scott? Do tell all.
Paige couldn’t help but smile.
I will, in due time. It’s quite a long story, and it’s still
unfolding. A work in progress. And you? Why does your
relationship status read “It’s complicated?”
Reply from Lucien:
Aren’t all relationships complicated?
An hour later, Chloe sent Paige a message, to let her know of a position opening up in her department, and she would love to pull strings if Paige wanted to apply. She worked as the Communications Specialist at the Horticultural Soci
ety. Still interested in the business of growing plants, Paige thought.
The glowing colors of the setting autumn sun seemed more vibrant than usual as Paige laced up her running shoes that afternoon.
Clad in a slicker and boots and splattered with mud, Deirdre gave the “For Sale” sign that had been outside of Paige’s house one last kick to loosen its lodging in the ground. Paige grabbed one end and helped her to pull the sign from the earth and drag it to the side of the house.
“I appreciate the deal, kid,” Deirdre panted, trying to catch her breath as they wiped their hands on their jeans and walked back to the porch. The rain had ceased. Paige zipped up her hooded sweatshirt against the October breeze. “I forgot how chilly this place gets, all of a sudden,” she said, looking up at the gray sky. A few raindrops began to spit again from the sky, so she and Deirdre moved to sit on the sheltered porch chairs. They leaned back, watching the sky darken, and the rain begin to fall in earnest. It was a hypnotic drumming on the roof above, and there was no other sound. Paige wondered how different she would find the din of the city, after learning to hear individual sounds of nature, sparse and clear.
“When do you move in?” Paige asked. She had cashed David’s check for the kitchen and extended Deirdre and Darnell a Seller’s Assist to renovate it to their tastes and standards. She had a feeling it would be a warm and inviting place, where they would happily cook together for many years, filling the dining room with guests and merriment. It comforted her to know that her old house would be in good hands, and filled with love and laughter.
Deirdre shrugged. “We’ll need Al to finish the kitchen,” she said, thoughtfully. “And then we have quite a bit of work for him to do on the guest house.”
Paige nodded. They had decided to turn Deirdre’s rambling boarding house into a sober living facility, where Darnell could continue to hold life support meetings for residents and non-residents alike. Bryce had been the first to move in. It became clear that this was a battle he was losing. He needed constant support, for a time, and Paige was relieved that he would be cared for until he could safely live alone, or with a partner. He and Sam had called it quits after Sam decided that Bryce’s mood swings were more than he could handle, and Bryce had retorted that Sam just didn’t understand what it was like to be in recovery. Understandable, Paige thought, as Sam had never been in recovery. Deirdre was going to let him turn an extra room into an art studio, as he had recently discovered a startling talent for sculpture. Darnell promptly put him in charge of art therapy classes for the residents, and Bryce was in the process of applying to the university to further study these areas. Darnell also planned to establish a running group for the home, as part of the residents’ course of recovery.
Mindy Hackney also moved in. She and her husband could live close by one another, and Mindy would return to helping him in the office, but Mindy was not able to cope with her alcoholism in the solitude of home. Howard Hackney, notoriously oblivious, had finally been forced to face that Mindy’s problem might not be solved by Life Support meetings alone (that she had given up attending, anyhow), when he found her naked and passed out cold in the laundry basket, her bare ass in the air. There was a nearly empty vodka bottle at her fingertips, at the bottom of the pile of clothing, which she had been attempting to return to its hiding place.
Paige gave her friend a crooked smile. “I have a surprise for you,” she said.
Deirdre cocked her head to one side. “You do? What is it?”
Paige went inside and returned with a manila folder full of paperwork. “The details are still being worked out,” she said, handing Deirdre the folder, “but I found you an investor for your farm. So you can turn Carmen’s Grocery into a Co-Op, and stock it with locally grown produce, grown by you. Bryce, Carmen and Paul all know about this, and they want to help you run the operation. And of course, it’ll be a Co-Op, so the townspeople will help, too. Maybe you can raise chickens, and cows and all that. The Wells Lake kids will love it.”
Deirdre appeared rooted to her chair. The rain drummed on the porch roof and puddled in the yard. Her mouth hung open but no words came out. She looked the way she did when Darnell smiled at her. Finally, she spoke. “We could also fill the kitchen at Darnell’s. Imagine all the mouths we could feed, such nourishment…But how…?”
Paige stretched out her legs and propped them up on the porch railing, crossing one ankle over the other. “Hey, a little blackmail can go a long way. A couple of local Robin Hoods taught me that.”
A slow smile began to spread across Deirdre’s face like a flower opening in the dawn of realization. “David! Oh my, what did he do?”
Paige shrugged. “Nothing worse than what I’ve done. The difference is he doesn’t know anything that I have done.”
Deirdre thought for a moment. “But how did you get him to pay up?”
“He cares too much about what people think of him. He’ll always pay for that, one way or another.”
Chapter 29
Paige said goodbye to Chloe and hung up the phone. She laid her head in her arms. Plans were unrolling at a dizzying pace. She zipped up her sweatshirt and yanked on the hood before burying her head in her arms again. Her phone rang again and she groaned before reaching to see who was calling.
“What do you want, David?” She asked, tucking the phone into her hood between her cheek and her arm so she wouldn’t have to lift up her head.
“Why aren’t you returning my calls?” David asked, flirtatiously.
“Because I don’t like you,” Paige said, before hanging up and tossing the phone across the table into her open shoulder bag. Score! She giggled to herself and realized that lolling about wasn’t necessary anymore. Delaying reality didn’t work, nor was she sure she wanted to. Thanks for calling, David, she thought. Just the sound of your voice kicks my butt back in gear.
A short walk brought Paige back to town. She jammed her gloved hands into the pockets of her coat and stared down the main road, as she had when they first arrived, counting the two traffic lights that hung from their wires, the shoes hanging from their laces, the park just beyond Darnell’s Bar, the wall of woods beyond the park. The road was deserted, as it was nearly supper time, but she imagined she could see Al sitting on one of the benches beside the street, eating his lunch from a takeout container, taking in the scenery, and Bryce smoking a cigarette with Carmen outside the grocery store. Deirdre handing a crate of food to Darnell to load into his truck. They all faded into the empty road and the old trees waved their arms in the air in the wind, telling her to be on her way.
Paige made her way past the drug store to Dr. Hackney’s office. Her final journal entry was a note of thanks. She pushed through the outer door and walked through to the door to his inner office. She pushed it open and breathed in the musty smell of old, scanning the room with her eyes, memorizing the torn leather sofa, the dust particles suspended in the beam of light from the high window, haphazard stacks of books and papers everywhere, and the old man dozing in the wingback chair by his desk.
She sat there for a long time, until he raised his head and smiled at her, never surprised to find her in his office. She flipped her journal to the last page and placed it in his hands. He caught one of her hands and gripped it, holding her there as he read. Then he smiled again and nodded, and shook the hand he held. “Well, get on with you. You’ll be missed, my dear.”
You’ll be missed. Paige had never heard that before in her life. She felt the words in her bones.
Back at the house, she stared down the road, to the bend where David had first disappeared, leaving her alone in the world, and to the left, up the road toward her nearest neighbors.
Darnell pulled up in his Honda Civic, followed by Deirdre in their new truck that they had purchased to transport goods from the farm to the store.
Paige smiled and waved to them from the porch. Darnell hoisted himself out of the Civic. He was still a substantial man, but he looked fitter now than she had ever seen hi
m, she thought, proudly. Darnell had officially joined the Wells Lake Running Club, which was planning road trips to compete in various races around the country, as well as hosting a few in their own town in the coming year.
Deirdre hopped down from the truck. “Hey kiddo,” she sang. “We brought your car. Need help loading it up?”
Darnell handed her the keys to the Civic and Paige handed him a check from her pocket. “We old folks aren’t going to help, mind you,” he said, pocketing the check. “But we’ll send Al over as soon as he’s done unpacking.”
Paige snickered. “And how is that working out, having him back at your place?”
Darnell shook his head. “I just keep repeating one word to myself. Temporary. We’ll be moving in here next week.” He put his arm around Deirdre and smiled down at her fondly. Paige thought, everyone should be so lucky.
“Alright, you two are making me nauseous,” she said. “Send Al over when he’s done, if he doesn’t mind. And if you see Bryce, he could help, too.”
Her friends nodded and climbed into the truck.
“Hey,” Paige called to them. “Tell the boys to bring their running shoes.”
One last run. One last shower in the old house, hanging the damp towel on the back of the door, brushing her hair before the mirror where she had a little over a year before beheld Paige Davenport looking back at her, back when Paige Scott began her long goodbye to her.
Bryce pushed her arms away saying it wasn’t good-bye until tomorrow, and he would be there to watch her click her heels together and disappear.
Paige and Al walked to the park, not for lack of ideas as to what else they should do to fill the time. The lake was empty, as the female duck had departed Wells Lake with her fledglings weeks earlier. Truth be told, Dingbat had taken off a few weeks before his family, and Paige doubted they were to be reunited somewhere.
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