by Thea Devine
Still, it was all the same in the end, she thought as she paid her bill at the Treetops for one night’s lodging with breakfast Everyone came back eventually, especially when there was nowhere else to go.
She knew it better than anyone. There had been twenty candidates for every job she had applied for, and now with her high salary and ten years’ experience, Carrie Spencer was a liability in a world where an assistant art director with five years under her belt could be hired for half the money Carrie required.
As she drove the van down Route 30 toward the house where she’d grown up, Carrie felt resentment clogging her throat like bile.
Get over it. It’s done. It is what it is...
Carrie had no appreciation at all for the clear summerblue sky over the tops of the trees that lined the Pond Road, nor any feeling of urgency when she glimpsed the glitter of water in the distance as she approached the turn to the house.
Almost there. Almost where? Where was she? And why did she suddenly feel lost?
Carrie shook off the sudden flare of apprehension as she turned onto the road down to the lake. It was really little more than a track, unpaved and overgrown. She jounced down a hundred yards of roots and dirt and maneuvered the van into the clearing where she’d always parked and jammed on the brake.
There, just ahead of her, on a rise above the lapping water, was the house, shuttered up, dilapidated and looking impossibly worn and weary.
Or maybe she was. No. She shook herself. She’d get nowhere thinking like that. She got out of the van, and just stood there, inhaling the scent of decaying wood, fresh summer growth and the unmistakable perfume of fresh air. She slowly walked toward the lake. She had always loved the lake. It had seemed vast to her when she was a child, as big as an ocean and as fathomless, its perimeter ringed by trees that hid the houses nearby. Then the solitude had felt peaceful. But today, as she stood on the rocks just below the house, she felt as if she was the only one here, and it felt lonely. Very lonely.
Hard as it was, Carrie had to come to terms with the undeniable fact that she was about to begin a new life...in an old place she’d believed she’d never, ever return to.
Now that she was here, she almost felt afraid to enter the house. Mother... A jolt of grief almost doubled her over. Her eyes blinded by tears, she turned to look at the house and began to walk toward it. It didn’t look so desolate, except for the windows, which were shuttered up just like the past and all the years her mother had so quietly lived out her life on the Pond.
Don’t think about that. She rummaged for her keys, and then stepped up onto the porch and unlocked the door.
Again, Carrie felt that unexpected reluctance to enter the house. She knew that everything would be exactly the way she remembered it. If she were blind, she could find her way around that small house because her mother had never changed anything.
Why? Why had everything remained the same all these years? Constancy? Certainty? She had never given it a moment’s thought in her life and she didn’t dare to think about it now.
Carrie pushed into the living room with its stone fireplace and huge wood stove, and stopped dead. She had known it would be cold inside but she had forgotten how musty and dank a closed-up, unlived-in house could be. It was eerie, even a little spooky, the contrast between the light and warmth outside, and the blackness and coldness within.
She should have called Jeannie Gerardo, her best friend from high school who lived right down the road so she wouldn’t have had to face the darkness alone. Jeannie would have met her here, and made light of everything, even Carrie’s momentary jitters. But it was too late for that since Jeannie was probably still at work.
This was something she’d have to face alone: an empty house. Memories of her mother. Mother dying all alone...
She shook off the feeling. Her mother had been the first one to encourage her to leave Paradise. Her mother had never held her back. Her mother had understood...
She propped the front door open and resolutely groped her way into the kitchen, and bumped right into the sharp edge of a counter.
She smothered a curse as she acclimated herself. There was a small counter to the left of the door, the fridge was next to that, its door always banked open with a stool and the stove next to that. It was like being in a nightmare, touching sticky unidentifable things in the dark, looking for the matches her mother always kept in the porcelain pot by the stove. She found canisters still filled with flour, tea bags and sugar. The coffee percolator her mother always stored in the bread box. The plastic container with the scouring pads. And then, just where it had always been, the matches in the pot by the stove. She struck one against the stone fireplace and the flame flared, instantly revealing the dusty furniture, cobwebs, must, mildew and decay.
Carrie felt her way to the electric box. One big plug fed every outlet. She shoved it into place and immediately all the lights flashed on.
Oh my God...
A mess. An unholy awful mess.
Mice and other creatures had taken over the house. There were tracks everywhere, right into the kitchen, and cobwebs and dust. Shredded newspaper and fabric. Worm-eaten wood by the fireplace.
There were dead things in the fridge and around the kitchen stove. The linoleum was tacky with some substance that had never been cleaned up. The bathroom was dusty, cobwebby, and the shower floor coated with who knows what
Carrie almost couldn’t bear to enter her mother’s room. It was at the back of the house, tucked in the corner with views of the pond in the morning. Her mother had loved the view. She stepped into the room, and her eyes teared as she surveyed it. Everything made of cloth or wool had been eaten through and was spotted with tracks and recent moisture. Carrie took mental notes as she scrutinized the room. She’d have to do something about the mattress. She’d have to burn everything in the closet. Her hands shook as she backed out of the room, turned and headed for her bedroom.
There, only the down comforter was relatively untouched. She could drape it over the porch railing, beat it and air it out, and she would sleep on the sofa until she scrubbed and cleaned every surface in the house.
Every surface. She sank into the wooden desk chair in the little den next to her room, feeling overwhelmed and utterly daunted.
All this work before she could even get started remaking her own life.
There wasn’t even a TV or radio. And she had sold all her possessions before she’d come north.
She supposed she was thankful the roof didn’t leak. But she wasn’t feeling thankful at all. She clenched her fists and squeezed back the tears.
It’s done. I can’t change it. I have to start from here and make it work... I have no choice... I have nothing.
No. No. No! That was really giving in to self-pity.
She did have something. She had a roof over her head and money enough for several months. And she had talent and determination. A lot of people had a lot less than that to work with when they had to start over.
All she had to do was take down some shutters and clean a house.
She would call Jeannie right now. She’d been planning to call Jeannie tomorrow, but Carrie needed a friend tonight.
It was only four in the afternoon, Carrie thought, not at all too early to renew a friendship and begin a new life.
2
JEANNINE GERALDO LIVED a half mile down the Pond Road in the house her family had occupied since before Carrie was born. She was waiting at the door when Carrie arrived, and she didn’t look a day older than when Carrie had left.
“Come to the kitchen and have some coffee,” Jeannie, said, and once again Carrie had the sensation of stepping back in time. The kitchen was exactly the same. The table, scrubbed and bare, was still surrounded by the same white-painted chairs, and the same ancient percolator was plugged into an outlet in the electric stove just as it had always been. The late-afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, which looked out onto the backyard.
Jeannie poured som
e coffee into a mug, handed it to Carrie, then joined her at the table. “You should have come sooner,” she said, but she softened the words with a smile. She wore little makeup and no lipstick, and her best features were her wide mouth, shiny swinging brown hair and smiling brown eyes. Those eyes were looking at her with such compassion that Carrie felt a twinge of guilt.
“I should have,” she agreed. “But I’m back now.” She hadn’t told Jeannie much on the phone, just that the house was a mess, her life was a mess, and she needed a friend. And she needed her mother, but it was years too late for that, and she pushed the thought away.
“For good?”
“For now.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jeannie said firmly. “You couldn’t stay away from New York for ten minutes—ever. I bet you already miss the money, the clothes, the men—”
“Things change.”
“They sure do,” Jeannie murmured. “There has to be a man.”
“There always is,” Carrie said.
“What’s his name?”
Carrie lifted her cup to her lips. Therapy already; she hadn’t been here ten minutes. But Jeannie was like that, sharp, sympathetic, discerning.
“Elliott. The weasel.”
Jeannie waited.
Sighing, Carrie put down the mug. “I was Bred,” she said bluntly. “There isn’t a job to be had at my level in this market. I can’t get by on less unless I’m not in New York, so I’m not in New York.”
“And this Elliott?”
“Corporate politics. Dirty, ugly politics, the upshot of which was he took away a client, my group was let go, and he was made a vice president.” She took a sip of coffee to steady the tremor in her voice.
God, it still rankled. It had been months, and she still felt angry. She swallowed slowly to calm herself and went on, “Of course, I’ve always contended being made a vice president is the first step out the door. But that’s probably pure envy on my part...”
“That’s rotten,” Jeannie said. That couldn’t be the whole story, she thought. There had to be more. It was obvious from just the way Carrie said Elliott’s name with such disgust But it was too soon for that kind of confidence. The wound was too raw and recent.
“It was. But I’m dealing with it.”
Jeannie was silent for a long moment. It was inconceivable to her that someone like Carrie who was so charismatic and talented couldn’t have found work anywhere else in the country. Yet she also knew that people wanted to be where they wanted to be, and maybe Carrie wanted and needed to be here right now.
“I’m tired,” Carrie said abruptly. “I really got tired. I was always on the run. Traveling. Doing the social scene. Pitching new ideas. Running to the client twenty times over after rewriting the same damn thing twenty times to change one word, one scene, one perspective. And then this last presentation...”
She got a faraway look in her eyes, as if she was picturing it, and Jeannie felt as if she could almost see it too.
“Elliott cut the show right out from under me,” Carrie said, her voice harsh. “He was the big hero, I’ll tell you. He saved the account, and gave credit where it was due to his brilliant concept and the hard work of his group. It was devastating. There was nothing I could do to stop him.”
Carrie had done something, though. She’d come home for comfort. “That’s just awful,” Jeannie murmured. “You’re here now. You did something. But I’m afraid you’ve traded all that glamour for church breakfasts, flea markets, biweekly town dances, local art shows and townies in trouble. Are you sure about this, Carrie?”
Carrie smiled wanly. “I’m not sure about anything except the mice are eating up my house, and Truck McKelvey’s still in town.”
“Oh yeah?” Jeannie slanted a glance at her.
“I saw him at Verity’s store. And Bob!”
“Yep, Bob took over. Just like Truck. Truck came back from the Midwest about, oh, eight years ago, and took over the plumbing business from Old Man. Old Man...well, he’s an old man, and—Truck’s a damn good plumber.”
“I bet,” Carrie muttered.
Jeannie caught the tone in her voice and she perked up. “Not married,” she added craftily. “Not engaged.”
“But lots of friends, I bet,” Carrie put in dryly.
“Everywhere,” Jeannie said. “If he’s seeing anyone, she doesn’t live in Paradise. He’s always at every social function.”
“Oh sure. Even the dances?”
“Absolutely. He loves to dance. I wish Eddie did,” Jeannie said wistfully. “He likes to watch, and not me.” The bitterness was there even though she tried to hide it. Twelve years with Eddie, good-natured, friendly Eddie with the roving eye...but that wasn’t Carrie’s concern. Jeannie could handle Eddie. She’d been doing it all along.
She caught Carrie’s questioning look and brushed it off. “Anyway, everyone comes and it’s a lot of fun, and you’ll come too next time. Oh, and there’s a lake association now. You might want to join that.”
“I never was an activist,” Carrie warned her.
“But you are,” Jeannie said. “Think of it this way—you’ve actively taken control of your life.”
CARRIE DIDN’T FEEL at all in control when all hell broke loose the next morning.
She had forgotten to set the water heater; the kitchen faucet ran rust; the toilet water was brackish and backed up when she flushed; and when she tried the shower, the pipe burst and ice-cold water gushed all over her, and as she watched in horror it inched up slowly toward the edge of the shower stall.
Where was a plumber when you needed one?
They always called Old Man McKelvey, always. The number was right by the phone just as it had always been. It was ridiculous to hesitate to call him because Truck might answer.
She slogged out of the shower and reached for the phone and called Jeannie instead.
“I’ve got burst pipes and rising water,” she told her, trying not to sound panicky.
“Call Truck. He’ll fix it.”
“I can’t,” Carrie hedged. “It looks worse than I think it is, and that will mean money I haven’t got.”
“Truck won’t bite you, you know.” Jeannie said. “You afraid of him or something? He’s come and fixed my washing machine a dozen times and I’m still alive.”
Carrie grimaced. She’d have to face him sometime, and she’d have to eat her words too. “I have some profit-sharing money coming. I’ll call New York before I start having conferences with Truck.” Only, the water was pooling at her feet now, and she had a feeling she didn’t have that kind of time.
“Well, call Cain’s over in Segers. Only everyone will wonder why you didn’t call Truck.”
“Fine. I’ll call your golden boy after I speak to New York.”
“Good,” Jeannie said, laughing. “Now, why don’t you plan to come to the dance Saturday night?”
“Is there one?” Carrie asked distractedly.
“Sure is. And you can meet some of the other golden boys in town.”
“Which ones are they?”
“Oh, the ones who play doctor and lawyer. More to your taste than a plumber, perhaps,” Jeannie said airily. “Call Truck, Carrie, before you drown.”
“GOOD GOD, Carrie.”
She dropped the phone and whirled. There was Truck in the doorway, a devil in denim with a mean-looking leather tool belt draped around his hips, as if Jeannie had conjured him up with her words.
“Go away.”
“Need a plumber?”
“I don’t need you.” Oops—unthinking words. Dangerous words.
“Yes, you do.”
She looked up sharply, too aware of how skimpily she was dressed, how drenched she was, how intensely he was looking at her, how inexorably the water was flowing around her feet and into the living room.
“I need a shutoff valve.”
“Me too,” he murmured. God, she was gorgeous. She was dressed in next-to-nothing shorts that elongated her legs up to there
, and she was braless in the wet T-shirt that was molded to her breasts and nipples.
She might as well have been stark naked.
“Are you just going to stand there?” she demanded.
“Did you need a plumber, Carrie?” He kept his voice neutral with an effort. She had no business looking so impossibly sexy so early in the morning, and he had no business reacting to her as if he was seventeen and she was a pinup.
“Would you?” she asked with exaggerated politeness.
“Why don’t you make some coffee?”
“Ah, yes—anything to distract the little woman.”
His eyes swept over her, lingering on her breasts. He remembered those breasts, how just one touch, one hot lick...he stiffened uncontrollably.
“There’s nothing little about you, Carrie.”
“Or you,” she retorted.
“You need a man around the house,” he murmured.
“I need a plumber, nothing more, nothing less,” she ground out, and stamped into the kitchen. A moment later, the sound of pouring water ceased. She didn’t need a man; she just needed to know those indefinable male things like where shutoff valves were and how to unstop toilets.
Using bottled water, she made the coffee in the ancient percolator.
She put milk, sugar and a package of cookies out on the counter and rummaged for clean cups and spoons.
Truck McKelvey was getting more than he deserved.
Carrie poured herself some coffee and went onto the porch. It was a sparkling clear morning with a crispness in the air that chilled her waterlogged body. She hunched down on the wobbly wicker chair, drew up her legs and balanced her cup on her knees. The pipes were clanking so loud she could hear them even from a distance. She just knew Truck was going to give her bad news. He wandered out shortly afterward with his coffee and nudged his hip onto the porch railing.
“Brought you some wood.”
“Thanks.” No smart-alecky retort about that. That was what neighbors did in Paradise: when you came to town with nothing, they brought you wood and wisdom.
“Pipes need redoing,” he said matter-of-factly.
