by Karen M Cox
As if summoned by her thoughts, James’s head popped over the edge of the roof. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the Ray-Ban Aviators he wore, but he stopped and his body stiffened.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was up here.”
She started to reply, but he cut her off.
“I was just looking for a quiet place to read. I’ll go somewhere else though.” And then, he disappeared down the ladder.
It was obvious he was avoiding her. What she didn’t know was why. He couldn’t still be angry after all that time, so it must be indifference. Maybe it was just too awkward to socialize with an old flame. Maybe he was congratulating himself on escaping and not tying himself down. After all, his life apparently turned out better without her, just as she predicted. Would he ever have gone to California if she had been with him? Would he ever have gone back to school or had the time to start EMP? Now he probably saw what he’d gained by going on alone.
Seeing him in person confirmed what she’d presumed after reading about him. He had become a fascinating, amazing guy. It was to his credit that he’d managed to pull himself up from nothing. A self-made man like him was a rarity in that day and age. No, Laurel, she berated herself, stop thinking about how much you admire him; you’re supposed to be indifferent to him — the way he’s indifferent to you.
They arrived at the picnic grounds in the late afternoon. Stuart and Laurel built a fire while the rest of the party carried coolers of food off the boat and over to the picnic table. James volunteered to start the charcoal grill, and Ginny arranged chairs around the campfire.
“I’m glad they have the grill here,” James said as he lit the coals. “I wouldn’t want to try cooking on the open fire pit.”
Laurel smiled. “I’ve done it both ways. The grill’s much easier though.” She fished a beer out of the cooler and headed over to the fire to tend the flames.
“Sit here, James.” Carrie patted the chair between her and Heather. “We want to ask you about earthquakes in California.” He grinned smugly and plopped down while Laurel smirked into her beer.
That was a little lame, Carrie.
It seemed the sisters were trying to outdo each other for James’s attention. She took a chair beside Ginny and Stu and stretched her long legs out in front of her. James’s comment the other night had stung a bit, so she had dressed a little younger in cut-off jeans and a tank top, and she’d painted her toenails a dark red that clashed with her hair — just to be rebellious.
James sat between the two girls, grinning like the Cheshire cat, and Laurel couldn’t blame him for being flattered by the attention. Although he had matured into a very handsome man, he had spent most of his youth in the shadow of Stuart, who was worldly, charming, and rich by middle-class standards. James had always had his own brand of charm, but he’d never garnered the level of female interest that Stu did with his Ken-doll looks and his sports car.
He was trying to explain the Richter scale to the girls, when Stuart finally had enough of their foolishness and interrupted.
“So, what are your plans now, James? Are you going to continue working on the EMP now that it’s been bought out?”
James took a sip of beer and set it on his knee, staring into the fire for a second before he answered.
“No, the EMP project is over for me. Belenos Music & Media bought it, and they can do what they want with it. I suspect what they want is to shelve it. I can’t develop any competing software for five years at least, so most companies aren’t interested in hiring me. I’m at a crossroads I guess. My friend Eric seems to think it’s time for me to settle down . . . ” The thought trailed off awkwardly, and James let out a half-hearted chuckle. “I might go back to playing music for a while or designing some other type of software. I don’t know.”
“Laurel said you were a professional guitarist in Nashville.”
“Miss Elliot exaggerates my talent,” he said in a formal manner. “It would be more accurate to say I was a factory worker who played around on the guitar on nights and weekends.”
“But you brought your guitar with you, right? Will you play for us a little later?”
He shrugged. “If you want. Do any of you play? Or sing?”
“Laurel does both,” Carrie piped up. “She sings at her dad’s restaurant sometimes and plays the acoustic guitar.”
Laurel’s eyes went wide. “Just accompaniment chords — nothing spectacular.”
“It was spectacular enough for Brian Fisher.” Heather waggled her eyebrows.
That brought an instant blush to Laurel’s cheeks. “Heather Pendleton! You stop right there . . . ”
James looked at her but aimed his reply at Heather. “Do tell, Heather. This sounds interesting.”
“Crosby let it slip, but then he said we had to ask Laurel for the scoop.”
“Big-mouth Crosby,” Laurel muttered.
Carrie laughed. “Yeah, big-mouth Crosby. So, Laurel, what’s the scoop with Brian Fisher?”
Heather’s eyes opened wide, and she sat up on the edge of her seat. “I think I remember that guy! He’s a real Grizzly Adams type — beard, flannel shirts, the whole bit, right?” She slumped back against her chair. “He’s sort of cute in that blue-collar way.”
“Yeah,” Carrie joined in. “He’s a carpenter, a man who’ll build you a cupboard or fix your leaky roof.”
“He must have been enchanted with your famous rendition of ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone.’”
Laurel rolled her eyes. “I was trying to help my dad drum up some business for the marina. Other people sang too. And that’s Dad’s favorite song.”
“Well, I guess it was Brian’s favorite song after that,” Heather teased. “Did he wait around after the performance to get your digits?”
“There are advantages to not having a phone,” Laurel quipped.
“You still don’t have a phone?” James asked, incredulous.
“Did you give him the dreaded ‘let’s be friends’ speech?” Heather asked. “Or did Crosby and Dylan have to run him off?”
James was smiling, but tension rolled off him.
“He’s married to someone else now, and that’s the end of it,” Laurel insisted.
“I guess he just decided it was time to settle down, kind of like your friend Eric said.” Heather shot him a winning smile.
James looked embarrassed, and Laurel was mortified at the direction the conversation had taken.
“Think I’ll go see if the coals are ready,” she volunteered, and she was off like a shot.
James watched her go. “Shouldn’t we go help?” he asked the sisters.
“Oh, Laurel always cooks when we grill out. She’s good at it, and she doesn’t mind at all.”
James said nothing, but a quick look behind her told Laurel he was surveying her backside, she hoped in appreciation. She swatted a mosquito off her calf, relieved that her shorts did something more for her figure than the hippy-girl skirt she’d worn the other night. It made her feel better to see that at least he noticed her a tiny bit.
She set the burgers on the grill, grabbed another beer, and rejoined the crowd around the fire. Thankfully, the conversation had shifted. Stuart, Virginia and James were deep in a discussion about software to run billing for medical and dental practices. The Pendleton sisters set out the condiments, chips and fruit salad.
Laurel checked her grill a couple more times. After several minutes, a swirl of charcoal-scented smoke clouded around her head, and she waved it aside with her spatula. “Burgers are ready,” she announced.
The crew crowded around, filling their plates and grabbing drinks. Heather and Carrie sat down amid an intense conversation about whether stilettos were better than platforms. James approached the grill and held out his plate.
“Worcester or no Worcester?” she asked, transferring the last burgers onto the serving plate.
“Worcester, thanks.” His voice was soft and low, and ran down the length of her spine and legs
and out her toes. She took his plate and put a burger on it, and when he took it back, his hand brushed hers. She felt a little jolt, and against her will, she looked up. There was confusion in his eyes, and he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“You’re welcome.”
He gave her a shadow of a lop-sided smile and damned if she wasn’t in love with him all over again.
June was going to be a long month.
Chapter 15
Laurel was in the kitchen when she heard a knock at her front door. Before she could dry her hands and get to it, the door opened and a voice called out, “Hello, is anybody here?”
“Oh, hey, Ginny. I’m in the kitchen. Come on in.” Her sister appeared in the doorway. “What brings you here? You want something to drink?”
“Some water would be great.” Ginny accepted her glass with a smile of thanks. “I hope you don’t mind me just popping in like this. I haven’t seen the new kitchen, and I wanted to check out the place where my sister spends so much of her time.” She looked around. “I really like what you’ve done here. You’re so . . . artistic.”
Laurel rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the joke. “Well, I am an artist. But thanks.” She indicated a chair and sat down herself. “So, how’s it going with your houseguests?” Laurel asked, trying to sound disinterested.
“Well, we’re down by one.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, James is gone.”
Laurel swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t convey the strange combination of relief and disappointment she felt, but Virginia continued before she could come up with anything.
“Yeah. He rented a cabin over near his sister’s for the rest of his stay.”
“I thought he was only staying a couple of weeks.”
“He told me he likes it here. He likes being able to see his sister, and since he has no job to get back to, he’s talking about hanging around for the rest of summer.”
“Oh?” Laurel’s ambivalence instantly changed to apprehension. She was not looking forward to running into James Marshall all summer.
“Yes. And he’s invited his former business partners for a visit. They’re arriving next week.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The married one, Eric, he’s only staying for a couple of weeks, but the other one might stay a little longer.”
“That’s nice.”
“Laurel, can I ask you something?” Virginia sat down and fidgeted, turning her water glass in circles on Laurel’s tiny kitchen table.
“I suppose you can ask. Do I have to answer?”
Virginia smiled. “Not if you don’t want to, but after watching the two of you the other night at the cookout, I’m beginning to wonder what happened between you and James. I was gone that summer, but Stuart says you guys were always together. He thought James really had it bad for you. But then he just up and moves to Nashville the next winter and then to California a couple years after that, and Stu doesn’t hear from him for ages. And now, all of a sudden, he turns up again. Do you think he came back to see you?”
Laurel snorted. “No. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was the last person he wanted to see.”
Virginia looked at her and waited.
“We had a . . . relationship, I guess you’d call it. He wanted me to move with him to Nashville.”
Virginia’s eyebrows went up. “Wow, I had no idea it was that serious. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Laurel shrugged. “Like you said, you were gone, and after things with him ended, what would be the point in discussing it?”
“I don’t know — for a sister’s sympathy, maybe?”
“I guess I just didn’t want to talk about it much.”
“That sounds just like something you’d say. You’re so stoic, Laurel.” Virginia gave her sister a sad smile. “So, he asked you to go to Nashville . . . and you turned him down.”
“Well, not at first. I said I would, but a few months later, when I told him it was impossible, he was pretty upset with me. He thought I had led him on — and maybe I did, I don’t know. But mostly, I think I lied to myself more than him. Part of me wanted to go, but . . . ” She huffed, impatient with the tenacity of her feelings. “What did I know? I was eighteen years old and in the middle of my first year in college. He was so headstrong, so sure he was doing the right thing and everything would work out fine, but I wasn’t so convinced. I mean, he quit school and moved to a new city where he didn’t know anyone or anything. It just seemed so . . . reckless. I was afraid, I suppose, and then Mama said — ”
“You told Mama? What were you thinking?” Virginia’s eyes were round.
“Well I was planning to move away, so I had to tell them. Daddy was unhappy about it although he never really said that in so many words. But Mama, she didn’t hold back.”
“What did she say? I can’t imagine . . . ”
“The gist of it was that I was throwing myself away at eighteen, and if I left school I’d never go back and finish my degree. And that one day twenty years later, I’d be stuck on a mountain somewhere with five children and no prospects for anything better.”
Virginia winced. “Ouch. Did Dad hear that?”
“No, thank goodness.”
“I’ve never heard her speak that strong an opinion — about anything.”
“Me neither. That’s one of the reasons it worked. I listened to her instead of to James, and he never forgave me for it.”
“Now I feel guilty. I didn’t mean to make things awkward for you. I had no idea you two were that involved. Why didn’t you tell me all this when Stuart invited him to stay with us?”
“Well it was kind of late by the time I knew anything about it,” Laurel said with a sardonic smile. “Besides, he’s Stuart’s good friend. How could I deny you all a reunion with him? Just because of my mistake?” She fiddled with the box of tea bags.
Ginny reached over and covered her hand gently. “So it was a mistake? You loved him?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Laurel got up and walked over to the sink. “It doesn’t matter now. He probably hates me. He can barely stay in the same room with me. Not a very auspicious beginning for a reunion of two star-crossed lovers, is it?”
“Hate isn’t the opposite of love, Laurel,” Virginia said, using her quiet, big sister’s tone.
“It’s not?” Laurel replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“No, the opposite of love” — Virginia stood up and took her glass to the sink — “is indifference.”
Laurel leaned back against the counter, absorbing those words, remembering how he’d reacted to finding her on the roof of the houseboat. If indifference was the opposite of love, that episode certainly illustrated it. Virginia’s voice broke in on her thoughts.
“Well I best get back. Stuart will worry. He worries all the time now. It gets a bit annoying.”
Laurel grinned. Virginia was used to doing her own thing on her own schedule. A baby was undoubtedly going to change her life! “Yeah, I need to get some work done too. Gotta get ready for that Woodland Arts Festival this week.” She paused. “Virginia?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, I know. You’re always fine. I just wish you could be happy too.”
Laurel gave her a wistful smile but couldn’t think of a thing to say.
Virginia sighed. “Okay, I’ll mind my own business now.” She leaned over and kissed her quiet little sister’s cheek. “See you later, Sis.” Then she turned the opposite direction and headed out the front door.
Laurel sat down at the table and tried to concentrate on her art supply catalog, but restlessness overtook her. She tossed the catalog aside, and went out to her studio, getting out a lump of clay and dumping it on the potter’s wheel. As it turned and her hands worked the clay, she let her mind wander. Usually, pottery took her on a soothing journey, but re
living her history with James had left her unsettled, and instead, she traveled back in time to the conversation that had forged the direction of her life . . .
* * *
Laurel watched as her father stalked toward the front door of the house
“Where are you going, Walter?” Mrs. Elliot asked in agitation.
“To the marina.” His reply was terse, and he glared at Laurel as he went.
Once the door shut behind him, Mrs. Elliot turned on her daughter. “Now, look what you’ve done. You’ve upset your father.”
“I’m sorry he’s upset.”
“Well, I’m upset too.” Her mother went over to the sink and started on the breakfast dishes. “I knew it was a mistake letting that boy stay with you last winter. Your father should have run him off then, and we wouldn’t be dealing with this problem now.”
Laurel’s mouth gaped open. Her mother looked at her.
“Did you think we didn’t know? Did you think no one saw you shacking up with him at your grandparents’ cabin for three weeks? I told your father he should intervene, but he just said you had to sow your wild oats like any other young person. Now look where we are.” She rinsed a handful of silverware and dropped it in the dish drainer.
“Mama, I love James, and he loves me. We’ve been planning this for six months now. I finished out my first year, and I can transfer to a school around Nashville. He says — ”
“He says, he says . . . He’ll say a lot of things, Laurel. Young men are just like that.”
“He’s not like that.” Laurel’s voice was quiet but steady. She picked up a dishtowel and began drying the plates in the drainer. “I wish you’d get to know him before you said those kinds of things.”
“I know his type. He came to dinner that night, and I talked to him then.”
