by Lyn Gardner
Who was she kidding? It was going to take lots and lots of practice.
***
Fifteen minutes later, preferring the comfort of a soft sofa over the two old wooden chairs in Robin’s apartment, the women returned to the parlor. Taking up opposite corners on the couch, they each took a sip of their wine before the silence was broken by Judy.
“I’ve always loved this room.”
By the time Robin had returned to the kitchen, she had convinced herself that her teenage infatuation was under control. She was an adult. Judy Dunnigan was an adult, and there was no reason to be nervous, but Robin was still having a hard time keeping her mind on the present. She looked over at Judy, and in a barely audible tone, Robin spoke the only word taking up space in her head. “Beautiful.”
“What?” Judy said, tilting her head just a bit.
“The room...the room is beautiful,” Robin said, quickly following it up with a gulp of wine.
“Most of them are,” Judy said, taking a sip of her wine.
“Most?”
“It’s been a few years, and I adored your aunt so don’t take this the wrong way, but there were a couple of rooms upstairs that made me wince when I walked into them. I’m not a big fan of yellow.”
“I’m the same way about orange.”
Judy’s face split into a grin. “Guess you’ll be painting the apartment then—huh?”
“That is the second thing on my list. Trust me.”
“What’s the first?”
“Finding someone to manage this place, which I hope I already have,” Robin said, eyeing Judy. “Interested?”
“I don’t know,” Judy said. “What did you have in mind?”
One of the greatest gifts a writer can have is an overactive imagination. With it, they can conjure up stories filled with twists and turns, create dialogue that flows effortlessly, and develop characters with more than one dimension. Robin had always considered herself blessed to have such an imagination. At times, she could close her eyes and write scenes by viewing the movie playing in her mind, but right now, Robin wished the reel would stop spinning. Inwardly groaning at the adult-rated images filling her head, she took a healthy swallow of wine in hopes she could drown them, and then snuggled back into her corner of the sofa.
“Okay, here goes,” Robin said, turning to Judy. “I haven’t been on Mackinac since I was a kid, and I came up here expecting a small house where I could spend my days writing. Instead, I inherited a bed-and-breakfast that is way too big for just one person, but I can’t bring myself to sell it either. Over the years, I’ve stayed in a couple of places like this, so I know kind of what they’re about, but I’m fairly clueless when it comes to running one. That’s where you’d come in.”
Judy arched her eyebrows. “Robin, I don’t know what Maxine told you, but I’ve never actually managed a B&B. I’ve just worked in a few to help out.”
“I know that.”
“So, as far as experience goes, I have very little.”
“You have a hell of a lot more than me.”
“Maybe so, but regardless of the experience either of us has, running a bed-and-breakfast isn’t a one-person operation, and you just said you came up here to write.”
“I did, but I can’t write twenty-four-seven,” Robin said, tucking her leg under her. “What I was thinking is that we’d have to hire a few people to help with the cleaning and getting rooms ready for the next guests, and as far as breakfasts are concerned, I’m a good cook. Granted, I’ve never made breakfast for two dozen people, but it’s not like I can’t learn how or at least lend a hand while you’re doing it. And as for reservations and bookkeeping, I’m usually a whiz at software programs, so I’m sure we can find something that could work for us.”
Judy studied Robin as she took the last sip of her wine. “So much for being clueless.”
Robin could feel her cheeks beginning to heat. “Actually, up until last night, I was.”
“An epiphany?”
“No, lots of Google searches,” Robin said with a snort. “If I had had that back in school, I would have aced everything.”
“You didn’t?”
Robin’s cheeks went from warm to scalding. “As a matter of fact, I did, but Google would have made it a lot easier.”
“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life is that it’s not always easy.”
Robin raised her glass in the air. “I’ll second you on that one.”
Judy clinked her glass against Robin’s before taking another sip. “So...speaking of Google, I should tell you that I tried to look you up today?”
“Yeah? Can I ask why?”
“I was curious as to what kind of books you wrote, but when I searched—”
“You didn’t find an author named Robin Novak,” Robin said, leaning back on the sofa. “And now you probably think I’m some struggling writer hoping and praying that one day I’ll finally get published.”
“I didn’t say that. I just couldn’t find you.”
“That’s because I write under R. C. Novak.”
Judy’s eyebrows drew together. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a lot of names?”
“I just have two,” Robin said, smiling. “Since there was already a well-known writer by the name of Robin Cook, once I signed with a publisher, they suggested I change it, so I took my mother’s maiden name. It’s all legal. Trust me.”
“I see...and the initials?”
Robin’s eyes twinkled. “So people couldn’t search for me on the Internet.”
Judy threw back her head and laughed, and a few seconds passed before she spoke again. “So, back to Safe Harbor,” she said, placing her glass on the table. “What were you looking for on Google?”
“Anything and everything I could find about B&Bs,” Robin said, shrugging. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting in over my head.”
“I see,” Judy said, relaxing back on the sofa. “And you don’t think you are?”
“Do you?”
“I think you can do anything you set your mind to.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but you don’t really know me all that well.”
“I know enough.”
“Is that so?”
“Okay, maybe not enough, but Adele wouldn’t have left this place to you if she didn’t think you could handle it. You just said you aced school, which means you have a brain in your head, and since I’m assuming you are a published author, that takes talent.”
“Writing a book is not the same as running a B&B.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Neither would I, which is why I need your help.”
Judy pulled in a long breath and letting it out slowly, she got to her feet. “Robin, I appreciate the offer. I really do, but I’m not getting any younger—”
“You are not old,” Robin said, jumping off the sofa.
“Tell me that when you get to be my age,” Judy said before heading to the foyer. When she reached the coat tree, she turned around. “And I’m not saying I’m ancient. I’m just saying that I’m not sure I want to start a new career at this point in my life. I appreciate you were willing to give me a shot, but I think you’d be better off finding someone with more experience.”
Robin’s shoulders fell. “What can I say to change your mind?”
Judy shook her head as she slipped into her jacket. “Robin—”
“Look, just take some time to think about it. Okay?” Robin said, and reaching out, she touched Judy on the arm. “It’s not like I’m going to open this place tomorrow. I’ve got rooms to paint and wallpaper to buy, and I’ve never wallpapered in my life, so that alone should give you a month or two. Please? Come on. What do you say? Just think about it?”
“You don’t give up easily, do you?” Judy said, looking up at the woman smiling down at her.
“No,” Robin said, shaking her head. “There have been a few times when I’ve regretted not giving up, but I don’t think th
is is going to be one of them.”
Chapter Nine
Judy walked down the concrete stairway and unlocking the door at the bottom, she flicked on the light and stepped inside her two-room apartment. Located in the basement of a house owned by Larry and Kay Wilson, it was small and contained only the necessities, but Judy had done her best to make it her home.
The caramel brown concrete floor was now concealed behind oversized beige area rugs in both the living and bedroom areas and keeping with earth tones, Judy had chosen a pale olive green for three of the walls, while the last was two shades darker. She hung up various pieces of artwork she had gathered over the years and added more depth to the small space with a few second-hand accents, but when it came to decorating the corner of the apartment deemed the bedroom, Judy had purchased everything new.
No longer having to worry about greasy fingers or the clumsiness of her ex, the platform bed, dresser, and chest of drawers were white and still pristine after five years. Atop the bed was a quilt, the Morning Star pattern a blend of rose and pink against a background of pearl was as unblemished as the day it was bought, and delicate lamps were perched on the nightstands, their bases crystal and their shades bell-shaped and diminutive.
The living room held an over-stuffed faux suede sofa against one wall and a meager entertainment unit along another, both of which she got in the divorce, but neither of which she used very often. Preferring books over television, besides the end tables flanking the couch, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a sturdy bookcase she purchased at last year’s bazaar. Tall and wide, and stained a dark walnut, it was a struggle for her and her friends to get it down the stairs, but it had been well worth the trouble. Like sardines in a can, novels now filled the shelves, and sitting at the ready on one of them was Judy’s iPad. While she still preferred printed books over electronic ones, when one lives on an island that’s basically closed for five months of the year, adaptation is required…and Judy had adapted.
She had adapted to a divorce she hadn’t seen coming. She had adapted to losing a business she had called her own for over twenty years, and she had adapted to being single again. That actually had been the easiest part. She no longer had to wait, to ask, to check, or to alter her plans to fit another’s, and Judy quickly discovered that there was something to be said for independence, even at her age.
There were still times when she missed her best friend, the one who she had shared such easy banter with over meals and chores. Since meeting at Central Michigan University their lives had become intertwined, and even though their marriage ended badly, Judy found a way to forgive him. Scott had simply come full circle…as some people do.
Scott Dunnigan was a typical jock in college. More concerned with basketball than his classes, he spent every spare minute he had on the court, running sprints, dunking baskets, and practicing his three-point shot. Although majoring in business, his only intention was to eventually run the one his father had started so he paid very little attention to his grades, but his coaches did. Threatened with dismissal from the team, Scott did what most jocks do. He went in search of a tutor and found Judy Lawton.
Judy, a physical education major, was well aware of Scott Dunnigan before he ever walked into the library that day. Tall, handsome, and rippling with muscles, there hadn’t been a basketball game she had attended where the bleachers weren’t filled with sports groupies, clucking and cooing at the young man’s physique like pigeons begging for seed, so her reception of him was less than warm. Judy didn’t like jocks. She didn’t like their cockiness, their self-importance, or their supercilious egos, so without as much as a longing glance in his direction, she opened a book and got down to business.
Before Scott met Judy, his interests had only numbered three—bicycles, basketball, and babes. Born and raised on Mackinac, like other kids on the island, Scott had attended the Mackinac Island Public School from preschool through twelfth grade. With an enrollment of fewer than one hundred students and the average graduating class being anywhere between two and six, Scott’s boyhood conquests were nonexistent. There had been only three girls close to his age, two of which were his cousins, so Scott did what boys do throughout their teenage years, but when he reached Central Michigan University, he no longer needed magazines.
Physically fit due to the miles he had pedaled as a dock porter, and tanned by the Michigan sun, when he sauntered his tall, lanky, muscled self onto that campus, pretty little heads began to turn, and Scott noticed each and every one.
All through his first year at CMU and halfway through his second, Scott spent his mornings in classes, his afternoons in the gymnasium, and his evenings hopping from bed to bed sampling all that the university had to offer. His appetite was sated with a smorgasbord of curvy young women, but his tastes changed when he met Judith Lawton.
Unlike the girls flouncing across campus lawns with their bouffant flowing manes blowing in the wind, Judith wore her hair in a style that was not mussed by the weather. Short on the back and sides and a smidge longer on the top, the cut directly opposed those modeled after the latest television sensations or pop stars. Instead of skin-tight stirrup pants or equally snug miniskirts, Judy preferred khaki slacks or crisp blue jeans, and while other girls covered their torsos in oversized sweatshirts with extraordinarily long costume necklaces, Judy could usually be seen wearing polos sedately embellished with an alligator logo, and a sweater draped around her shoulders. She didn’t wear the brightly-colored hoop earrings that were all the rage or the Espadrilles in stripes of orange, red, and brown, but rather her pierced ears only held tiny studs of gold, and the shoes on her feet were usually solid white cross-trainers.
Judith Lawton was everything the other girls were not, and Scott was totally smitten, except there was one teeny-tiny issue. Other than tutoring him in English, Judy didn’t give Scott the time of day. If they passed in the halls, she didn’t acknowledge him. If they attended the same sporting event, she never looked in his direction, and on the two occasions when they had shown up at the same party, before Scott could make it across the room to say hello, Judy had made her exit.
His pearly-toothed smile had no effect on the woman nor did his towering frame or faddish cologne, and he was at a loss on how to get Judy’s attention, but when he passed his next English exam, and Judy smiled after hearing the results, Scott had found his answer. From that day forward, Scott studied harder than he ever had before.
Smiles eventually turned into celebratory drinks at trendy local bars catering to the college crowd, and by the middle of their junior year, Scott and Judy had become a couple. Theirs was a casual yet exclusive relationship, and Scott never looked at another woman again...until he was forty-seven.
Upon graduation, Scott went back to Mackinac, but with no teaching positions available on the island, Judy returned to her home state of Indiana to look for work. They settled into a long-distance relationship, seeing each other whenever they could, and for Judy, that was enough. For Scott, it was not.
Every time they saw each other, Scott began to propose. He did it on one knee and on two. He did it in bed, in restaurants, and on ferry rides across the Straits. He pleaded, promised, and pushed, even dangling children in front of what he assumed were maternal hormones ready to let loose, but it wasn’t until a cold December night when Judy finally said yes. Twenty-four hours later, fearing she would change her mind, Scott purchased two airplane tickets to Nevada and two days after that, they were married in a small chapel on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Judy bent down, adjusting the dial on the baseboard heater before she shrugged out of her coat and hung it on a hook on the wall. She headed over to the kitchenette in the right corner of the apartment, and opening the refrigerator, she scanned the shelves for anything even remotely appetizing. She loved to cook, but making meals for one seemed tedious at best. Spying the leftover sausage from the day before, fifteen minutes later Judy was standing at her kitchen sink, eating fried eggs and re-heated s
ausage out of a skillet.
***
Cocooned in the bubbles floating atop the hottest water she could handle, Robin rested against the back of the double slipper claw-foot tub and stared at the wall in front of her. She wasn’t examining the plaster for defects or condemning the shade of pale carrot Adele had chosen for the bathroom. Robin was just stupefied. Totally and utterly stupefied.
Was this dumb luck? Was this fate? Was this divine intervention? After all these years, what in the universe had shifted so perfectly to allow her teenage crush to once again become a part of her life...and a much bigger part at that.
Their time together would no longer have to be based on Robin showing up early for school. It wouldn’t hinge on a chance meeting in a crowded hallway where Robin would crane her neck just to steal a glance. She wouldn’t have to sit on metal bleachers, blinded by the sun or drenched by the rain, in order to watch the woman run up and down the sidelines of a soccer field, clapping her hands, shouting instructions, or huddling with her players. If Judy Dunnigan took the job, Robin could see her every day without question or camouflage. She could stand next to her in the kitchen, learning the meals they would serve for their breakfasts, and she could hover over her as Judy worked at mastering software they had yet to buy. She could comment on the entries, make suggestions, or perhaps even laugh at a typo, and it all hinged on only one thing. If Judy said yes.
Robin jerked in the tub, sending a splash of water over the sides. If wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be. Something or someone had brought them back together, and Robin refused to believe anything else. This wasn’t happenstance. This couldn’t be an accident. She had pined for this woman for decades, never able to truly shake the memories of only a few short months from her mind. In dreams, blurred and fractured, the sound of Judy’s voice floating over athletic fields had always found its way to her, and on crowded beaches, it only took one glance at the cloudless Florida sky for Judy’s eyes to come back to her, their blue so pure and clear. Alligator logos always brought smiles, pleated skirts forever received second glances, and when pixie haircuts came into view, Robin’s heart rate had uncontrollably and consistently quickened.
