Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans

by DeMaio, Joanne

  Before getting out of the car, Lauren slips her wedding band off her finger and puts it in her shorts pocket. There are two front doors and she hesitates before knocking on one. An older woman opens it with one hand, a wet paintbrush in the other.

  “It’s available the first of September,” she tells Lauren through the screen door. “We’re painting now, changing the locks. The usual.”

  Lauren nods as though she knows. As though the divorce has already happened. “I have two children. How many bedrooms are there?”

  “Three, dear. One’s very small, though. And if your husband’s handy, we can negotiate the rent in exchange for mowing, fixing up, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, I must not have been clear. I’m recently divorced.” She tries the words out, seeing if they fit. Is this what she wants to be telling people? “Can I see the place?”

  The woman’s glance drops in a quick questioning onceover. Can she swing the rent? Would she have men over? She unlatches the screen door lock and holds the door opened for Lauren to walk through, all the while giving her the necessary details. “The rent is nine hundred a month, with no utilities. And we need a two-month security deposit.”

  “That’s fine,” Lauren lies. Her hand is clutched in a tight fist around her handbag shoulder strap as she enters the empty duplex. “I could have that for you when I sign the lease.”

  For the next half hour, a potential life opens before her. She has to consider certain possibilities. And why not? Kyle does. He keeps tabs on jobs down south without talking it over with her. He bookmarks employment trends online. He reads about career planning. If she plans to divorce him, she’ll have to know at least this much. What harm can come from testing water faucets, opening kitchen cabinets and glancing into tiny bedroom closets? She just wants to look.

  It takes only that half hour to realize how close they’ve come to permanently screwing up their lives. Upon close inspection, the house looks dingy around the edges. It can’t compare to the small home they work so hard to maintain back in Eastfield. Their little Cape Cod shines with the dedication she and Kyle put into it, one part money, three parts elbow grease.

  And when she considers being a single, working mother trying to raise two children and support this place on an inadequate income, she imagines that her life, too, will be dingy around the edges. It will be shabby and tired, just like the carpeting and baseboard molding in the duplex. No, this is not the life she wants. There has to be another way. What has she done now? She pictures Kyle standing at the big stove and understands what she saw earlier when she watched him unnoticed at the diner. He wasn’t whistling. He wasn’t talking to Rob about what he’d read in the newspaper or heard on a talk show. He’d been too quiet, only worrying.

  “Thank you,” Lauren tells the landlady. “But I don’t think it will work for me.”

  “If you change your mind, let me know.”

  Lauren hurries to her car, shoves her hand into her pocket and finds her wedding ring. Heading back to the diner, she glides through stop signs and toots at slow cars, feeling like she is late for something. The diner is still mobbed, and she pushes open the door, walks past the crowded counter and pokes her head into the kitchen. Kyle’s back is to her and she notices again the horrible bruise on his arm. It’s faded to a yellow-green now.

  “Kyle,” she says.

  He glances over his shoulder and sets down the spatula, wiping his hands on his apron. “Lauren, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” This is not about running into his arms. This is about seeing what they really have. There are circles under his eyes and he perspires. He looks a wreck and she wants to help get him through the week. “It’s Evan,” she says, making up something on the spot. “I forgot to tell you before, but he wants to go crabbing this weekend.” She moves closer, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head, at a loss for words. “Can you bring the bait when you come? Maybe some chicken, or day-old hot dogs?”

  “Yeah.” He turns up his hands. “That’s it?”

  It is. He knows they’ll be waiting for him now. “That’s it. Okay?”

  He nods, never taking his eyes from hers.

  Lauren watches him for a long moment, then reaches her fingers to touch the fading bruise above his elbow. “You’re busy. We’ll see you Saturday then.”

  On the drive back to Stony Point, to her kids and her modest vacation, she knows that their lives are far from tired and shabby. Kyle never wanted much. Just the house, a yard and garden. His castle, he calls it.

  Her parents have been married for thirty-five years now. Lauren wonders if all those thirty-five years were happy ones or if they had scraped through times too, when the only answer seemed to be escape. To climb out a window when no one was looking, and go! Maybe they first sank to the floor, close to that window, wrapped their arms around their knees and dropped their head and cried. Then, well then they stood and walked back to the marriage.

  Appliances have been replaced, hot water heaters repaired. Eva also wrote an offer with a deposit on a large ranch home. She waits for Matt to come upstairs with his hammer.

  “You sure you want to hang it here?” he asks as he measures the empty hallway wall outside their bedroom.

  Eva stands at the mirror set on the floor and runs her fingers over the etchings, the same way she did all those years ago when she was a baby, according to Theresa. It was a gift from her birth family, and the story is that when she’d fuss as a baby, Theresa walked her back and forth in front of the mirror and she’d reach out and touch the etchings. “Oh yes. I want to walk past this mirror every day of my life.” They measure and together lift the mirror into place.

  “Good?” Matt asks.

  “Perfect.” Eva gazes at it at eye level now. “It’s so beautiful. I forgot to show it to Maris this morning. Wait till she sees this.”

  Matt sits sideways on the top step watching her. “How’re you feeling?”

  Eva sits on the floor beside him. “Fine. Just a little queasy sometimes. But it could be the heat.”

  “Why don’t you buy one of those home pregnancy tests?”

  “I will, as soon as I get a chance.” She feels something, then. Maybe she doesn’t want to know. Maybe a baby now isn’t what she thought a baby a year or two ago might be. “Did you make the reservations for Wednesday?”

  “Seven o’clock. The Clam Shack.”

  “The Clam Shack? They don’t take reservations. And I thought we were going to The Sea View.”

  “Too boring. We’ll get some good take-out, then hit the mini-golf course there.”

  “Huh. That does sound fun.” It sits right on the bay, too, facing the harbor, which is always nice. She twists a strand of hair, noticing its true auburn color. “I’ll let Maris know so she dresses casual.”

  “Okay.”

  “Jason doesn’t have a girlfriend, does he?”

  “Don’t even start. Leave those two alone. She’s the small town girl who got away. That’s how Barlow put it. He won’t interfere so long as Scott’s in the picture.”

  “More like the small town girl trying to find her way back,” Eva argues. “Maybe Jason’s wrong.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But for Scott to fly out here from Chicago, he must care a heck of a lot about her.” Matt reaches over for his hammer and tape measure. “Maris has to work this one out on her own.”

  Eva watches Matt walk down the stairs rather than get involved with her fixation on Maris and Jason. She stands then, considering the mirror again. Her family’s image once filled the reflection and if she looks hard enough, it’s like there are some kind of ghosts hovering there. “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she whispers. Touching the etched scrolls on the mirror’s corner, this is the closest she’s ever come to her past.

  Chapter Twenty

  A drawing board and case instruments are spread over the table on the front porch. Jason spends hours considering the cottage’s front elevation, flipping through one of Neil’s scrapbooks an
d going through sheets of drawing paper without success. The cottage he is working on sits high on a hill, its small windows allowing in a distant view of Long Island Sound. He thinks of knocking out the front wall and installing glass doors to a deck, extending the room outside. It doesn’t seem enough, though. It isn’t a masterpiece.

  He finally grabs his sweatshirt and takes a walk along the beach, studying the sea view the cottage might have. It is a still night, the waves breaking lazy on the shore. His gaze rises to the sky. Thousands of stars give depth to its blackness.

  “Don’t forget the sky,” Neil always reminded him. “It’s the most important part of the landscape. It changes all the time.” That is the masterpiece.

  He considers his design impasse, moving along the high tide line slowly. At the end of the beach, he turns to the night horizon, where the black sky imperceptibly meets the dark sea. “Are you out there?” he asks before scooping up a handful of small stones. One by one, he throws them into the water. Moonlight catches the silver ripples. “Tell me what to do.” Minutes pass as the ripples widen and thin. When Jason returns to his drawing board to complete the cottage design, still nothing works.

  Since the accident, there have been times when he’s called his sister late at night. Usually when the house felt really still, like the hands of the clock have just stopped, or on nights when he decides not to go out for a drink. He still can’t get through certain moments alone.

  “It’s not about drawing, or architecture,” she says now.

  Jason drags a hand through his hair. “But I can’t get this one right.”

  “Get what right?”

  “The design. It’s like the answer is just out of my reach. I think I have it, and when I look again, it doesn’t work.” He turns back to the table as he talks on the cordless, sits down and picks up his pencil.

  “You already know how to finish that design. You do them without even thinking. It’s something else.”

  Jason switches on the desk lamp and sketches on a blank sheet of paper. “No, you’re wrong. I just got back from walking on the beach, trying to see it from that angle.”

  “And we know what you’re doing when you walk on the beach like that.”

  “And that would be?”

  “You’re talking to Neil, looking at something from all angles. So what’s your problem with him now?”

  “I’m telling you—”

  “It’s late, Jason. What are you really trying to get right? Maris?”

  Jason’s hand stops sketching for a second before continuing with the design. “Maybe. Matt and Eva are taking us out to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Okay. So that’s what this is about. What’s happening that you’re not telling me?”

  Jason continues sketching. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “About what?”

  “I guess I don’t want her to leave.”

  “So you want to start seeing her?”

  He sketches a tall gable into the roofline. “Maybe. I worry about her. A lot’s going on in her life right now.” He continues to sketch, the scratching sound of his pencil dragging back and forth on the paper.

  “So you were on the beach talking to Neil, and now you’re calling me. What are you looking for? Permission?” Paige asks. “Just go for it. You know Mom would give you hers. She wants you to be happy.”

  “Dad wouldn’t.” Their father had changed, after that day. They all did. But their father seemed to fade, somehow. “He thought it was my fault.”

  “He did not. Dad never stopped mourning Neil and mourning what your life would be without a leg and all. He died of a broken heart for both of you.”

  There came a long pause then, one filled with the sound of the waves breaking outside on the rocks, and voices, and the sea breeze. “You didn’t die.” He strains to hear the voice over the surf. “You’ve paid your debt. Even though there was never even a debt to pay, it was an accident.”

  “Jason? I said, is she seeing anyone?”

  “Someone back in Chicago. Scott. I’m not sure how tight they are, though.”

  “Well that’s easy to find out. When you see her, ask questions. Talk to her, Jason. Touch her hand. Look at her eyes. If there’s someone else, she’ll tell you.”

  “I don’t know. Then I just think about Neil and what he could never have. You know, like why should I have a good life? Why me and not him?”

  “Would you stop it already?”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop punishing yourself. Your guilt’s crippling you way more than your leg. Unless you get yourself past it, you’ll never lose the phantom pain, the flashbacks, everything.”

  “I’m serious, Paige.”

  “That’s the problem. You’re too serious. Why don’t you just bring Maris home some night so you’re not alone, if you know what I mean. Neil’s gone, but you’re not.”

  Jason sits back in the chair. He lifts the sketch and sees what came without thought. He knocked out most of the front wall, added a gable to the roof to raise the ceiling in the front, drew a wall of windows and topped them with an amazing arched grouping of windows facing the sky over Long Island Sound. He drops the picture, stands and looks outside from the porch. Don’t forget the sky. It’s how he keeps Neil here.

  The next day, Paige’s words stay with him as he completes the final elevations of the cottage design; as he showers and shaves and drives to The Clam Shack. They stay with him as he leans on the railing he stood at recently with Maris, looking out over the water, waiting for the others to arrive.

  More than anyone else, he waits for Maris. He looks out at the harbor knowing damn well that she could have easily returned to Chicago last week. Everything would have been nicely arranged for her. That was Scott’s reason for being here. To bring her back.

  He glances over at the sound of car doors closing. Maris gets out with Eva and Matt. He notices her cropped jeans and long tee, topped with a short denim cardigan. He notices her gold necklace, the wedge sandals, the big leather bag. Her brown hair is down and brushed back off her face in a way that deepens her brown eyes. He notices it all.

  “Hey,” Maris says. “I wanted yellow.”

  “Too late.” Jason tosses the ball in the air and catches it. “You snooze, you lose.”

  “Fine.” She looks over the rack of clubs and balls at the stand next door to the restaurant and chooses a red ball and miniature golf club to match. “I’m so going to win anyway. And I’m teeing off first.”

  “You’re seriously striking out,” Jason says. “Eva’s at the big fish already.”

  Maris looks over to the first hole of the miniature golf course where Eva is taking aim at the large, opened fish mouth. Her ball does a loop-de-loop through the fish to the green on the other side. “Hey,” Maris calls out when Jason walks past her and gets in line behind Matt.

  Jason turns around and hands her the score card and pencil stub. “They get to go first because they bought dinner. And last in line has to keep score. No fudging the numbers.”

  Maris snatches the paper and writes in their names while Matt and Jason take their first swings at the fish mouth.

  “How’s Paige doing?” Eva is asking Jason when Maris meets up with them on the other side of the giant fish. Eva taps her ball into the hole. “Two,” she tells Maris.

  “She’ll be here Sunday with Vinny and the kids,” Jason says, taking aim.

  “They’ll be on the beach all day?” Eva asks.

  “Pretty much. She’s coming for Neil’s anniversary mass in the morning, then they’ll spend the day here.” He turns to Maris. “Three.”

  “Do you have a mass said every year?” Maris asks.

  Jason nods. “She schedules it early, then spends all afternoon on the beach thinking of the old times. The whole day’s kind of a memorial to Neil. Did you get my three?”

  “Oh, no.” She pulls the pencil from behind her ear and jots down the numbers. “Sorry.”

  “Hurry up,” Ja
son tells her. “They’re past the windmill already.” He walks over to the next green, throwing her a sidelong glance when she scoops up her ball without putting.

  “Loser’s buying a round of drinks afterward,” Matt calls back at them. “Two, Maris.”

  “Sheesh, I can’t even focus with the way you guys are speeding through. Slow down.” She swings at her ball, which proceeds to head directly into one of the windmill paddles and ricochet straight back at her.

  “Nice shot,” Jason says, walking to the other side of the windmill. “Try again.”

  By the time she finishes at the windmill, the others are waiting for her at the smiling dolphin. “The best thing I ever did was start ripping that barn apart, moose head and all,” Jason is saying. “I’ve got a lot of memories of my brother in there, and let me tell you, sometimes the mind plays strange games with them. But it’s still good. Good to be back here.”

  Maris knows that Eva is glad he is back, too, for Matt’s sake. Matt needs to hang out with someone not on the force, someone he can let his guard down with. Jason helps him out of some dark places, too, when they swing those hammers and crowbars together. “What’d I miss?” she asks.

  “Two for Eva, three for me,” Matt says. “Your turn, Barlow.”

  “I was thinking of fixing up the old home too,” Jason says as he sets down his ball. “Maybe have you list my condo for sale, Eva.”

  “Wow, you’d make that move? Are you sure?” she asks.

  “I think so. But hell, let’s have fate decide. Right now. A hole in one through the dolphin and it’s definite.” He adjusts his stance a couple of times, tries a few practice swings through the air then takes aim at the ball. They watch it spin through the dolphin, out the other end, followed by a couple seconds of silence before the rolling ball clinks into the metal cup on the green.

  “Huh,” Maris says. “I guess you’re staying.”

  He looks at her for a long second and oh, she knows that look. The water’s fine, jump in, it says. Take a chance on the dolphin, why don’t you? Chicago, or Stony Point? No contest, really.