Second Harmony

by Barbara Bretton

  And, strangely enough, he had been one of hers.

  "Busy," Sandra said, her eyes darting back again toward her pals.

  "Working?"

  She shook her head. Her bangs shimmered with the movement. "Traveling."

  "No shit? Elinor thought New York City was the focal point of the known universe."

  A funny look passed over Sandra's face, but disappeared before he could imprint it on his memory.

  "She changed her mind a few years ago," she said.

  "That's one hell of an about-face. What was it – early retirement?"

  He knew he was getting sidetracked but the Elinor Patterson he'd known wouldn't have traveled farther than Atlantic City. Hell, she couldn't have afforded it.

  "She's worked hard enough all these years," Sandra said, her voice strained. "Why not retire early?"

  He raised a hand. "Hey, listen – I wish I could do the same thing, Sandy."

  Actually, early retirement was the last thing he wanted, but the conversation was taking such an odd turn that he was willing to say he drank radiator sealant instead of orange juice in the morning if it would help.

  "So where is she now?" he asked instead.

  "She's in – umm, I think she's in Zermatt."

  "Zermatt, Switzerland?"

  "There's another one?"

  He whistled. "No wonder I lost touch with Elinor. She's been too busy jet-setting around."

  Her glance was frankly curious. "I didn't know you and Mother had been in touch often enough to lose touch."

  "I always liked Elinor," he said, watching her carefully, wishing he could slip past the barrier of caution on her beautiful face. "Just because it didn't work out for us was no reason to lose her friendship, was it?"

  "Just when did you lose touch?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know. Five, maybe six years ago . . . something like that."

  She nodded, as if to say that made sense. "That's about when it – that's about when she retired."

  A long, uncomfortable silence rose from the ground, separating them as completely as if it had been a brick wall.

  He searched around for some safe, neutral topic of conversation. "My folks have been on the move, too. They've gone down to Florida to be with Toni and her husband and kids."

  Sandra looked surprised. "Toni's married?"

  "Five years." He told her about Toni's daughters, and they spent a few minutes playing catch-up as he filled her in on the rest of his family. Brother in Ohio. Another brother in California and sister in Utah. Every single damned one of them solidly blue-collar. Living the life Sandra had predicted for him years ago.

  The life she'd turned away from.

  "So you're the only one left in New York?"

  He nodded. He wanted to tell her where his life had taken him, but this was hardly the time – and definitely not the place. Another deep silence fell between them.

  "How long have you been back?" he asked.

  She stole another glance at her co-workers, and he noticed the small telltale twitch at the right corner of her mouth. What kind of life had she gotten herself into? What she did outside the office was her own business, or it should be.

  "Three weeks," she said with a groan. "I haven't even unpacked yet, and now I have a hurricane to clean up after."

  He remembered the girl who'd been terrified of storms. "Still hate thunder and lightning?"

  "Shh," she said, putting her index finger to her lips and looking around. "Not so loud. Bad for the corporate image." For a second he thought he caught a glimpse of her earlier vulnerability, but it disappeared before he could be sure.

  "How bad did it get you?" He thanked the Fates for that damned hurricane. If Henry hadn't passed through, they probably wouldn't have one damned thing to talk about.

  "A tree fell on my living room. If I ever get my phone service back, I can call a repairman." She angled herself away from her co-workers a fraction more. "How'd you make out?"

  "Luckier than most. I lost a few trees. Nothing major."

  They traded stories about where they'd been when the lights went out, and he laughed as she described the squirrel she'd found swinging from the philodendron in her caved-in living room. She was more sophisticated than when he'd last seen her. He was fumbling around, trying to keep from saying the things that were tearing up his insides, while she managed to keep their conversation as light and breezy as a summer day.

  She might look the same as the girl he'd once known, but everything else about her had changed. Her rough city edges had smoothed themselves out. Instead of her New York accent, there was the sound of Harvard in her voice. The insecurities she'd once had were obviously all safely under control. She might be wearing an old sweater and faded jeans, but she was executive material nevertheless.

  The old angers began to resurface.

  She must have felt the change in him, because she gestured toward the table where the friends he'd bumped into in line were sitting. "You're with some people," she said. "I should let you get back to them."

  "They can wait, Sandy." She seemed to start at the sound of her name. "What's wrong?"

  "You don't know how long it's been since I've been called Sandy."

  "What do your friends call you? Ms. Patterson?"

  "Sandra," she said. "For years it's been Sandra."

  "Sandra." He tried the name and didn't like it. Of course, it made no difference if he liked it or not. It was her name and her life, just the way he'd wanted it seven years ago.

  "Well," she said, those shimmering blue eyes of hers meeting his, "it was terrific to see you again, Michael."

  She extended her hand, and he hesitated. What he wanted to do was pull into his arms again and kiss her until everything else disappeared, everything except the way she tasted and sounded and felt in his arms.

  He moved toward her.

  "No," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Please."

  For a second he was tempted to override her wishes and pull her to him, but then she glanced again toward the man she was with, and reality hit him hard. They weren't seventeen any longer, or twenty-two, or twenty-eight. They were two thirty-five-year-old adults, with lives that extended far beyond the memories they shared.

  The choice had been made a long time ago, and nothing he could say or do in the middle of a crowded White Castle would change a damned thing, even if he wanted it to.

  But it was hard to let her go.

  "I really should get back to my friends, Michael."

  "Listen," he said, wanting to keep her near him a little longer, "about that roof of yours. If you give me your number, I might be able to get some help out to you."

  Her gaze flickered over his faded jeans and worn T-shirt. He knew what she was thinking, and it bothered him as much now as it had when he was younger.

  "A friend already said he'd help out."

  Michael gestured toward the banker-type in his spanking-clean running shoes and sweat-free sweats. "I don't think he's much for repairs, Sandy."

  She hesitated, and he was thinking he'd gone too far when that terrific grin resurfaced and his breathing started up again.

  "You might be right," she said. From her canvas shoulder bag she pulled out a business card and scribbled a phone number and address on the back. "My home phone's out of order, but you can reach me at work on Monday."

  He checked out the front of the card and whistled low. "Assistant vice-president. Making your old dreams come true, Sandy?"

  Her cheeks reddened, and he wanted to call back his words. He'd wanted them to sound light and easy, but nothing between them had ever been light or easy. Why should this be any different?

  "I'm trying," she said, after an uncomfortable pause. "Maybe if you'd—"

  "Hey, McKay! Invite her over!" Tony and his wife called out from their table by the window.

  "I'd better –"

  "You'd better –"

  Michael inclined his head. "You first."

  "It was good to se
e you, Michael. Take care."

  Brief and to the point. She must be great in business. No wasted words, no phony sentiment, no prolonging the goodbyes. There was no point in talking about his marriage or her career or the tangled skeins of their common past. They were history.

  And she obviously wanted it to stay that way.

  Sandy turned to go, and he reached out involuntarily and touched his index finger to her right cheek in a gesture familiar to both of them.

  "Michael?" There was a look akin to fear in her eyes, but he couldn't help himself.

  "I'll call you, Sandy," he said quietly, knowing it could be no other way. "You can count on it."

  #

  Michael turned, and Sandra watched him walk away from her, watched that same beautiful line of shoulder and waist and leg that had once made her burn with a desire so intense that nothing she'd felt since even came close.

  Don't call me, she thought. Don't call me or write to me or think of me.

  The moment he pulled her into his arms, she'd known that everything she'd ever felt for him – all the rage and desire and love – was still there, waiting to claim her once again.

  The life of independence and security that she'd carved out for herself, inch by painful inch, had nearly been incinerated in the fire he'd ignited with a simple kiss. He was as dangerous to her future now as he'd been years ago, and the pleasure she thought she'd take in besting him didn't seem to matter a damn.

  How important was it to dazzle him with her hot-shot title and fancy house, when none of it would give Elinor back her health or make Sandra's nights any less lonely?

  Seeing Michael had done nothing but awaken old longings, old dreams she had no business letting herself fall prey to.

  She had responsibilities now, both to her mother and to her job, responsibilities that gave her no time to pursue lost loves.

  She had to remember her last encounter with Michael McKay if she was going to keep her balance.

  She had to remember the pain and humiliation when he'd stroked and kissed and whispered to her, then abruptly walked out with the words, "Wish me luck, Sandy. I'm getting married next month."

  She had to remember –

  "You all right?" Ed Gregory appeared at her side. "You look a little rocky."

  "I'm fine." She scooped up a handful of paper napkins and straws from the counter and followed him to their table, where Carol was talking about a co-worker's fiscal exploits. That simple act of stepping back into her normal self required all of her concentration.

  "Michael is an old friend," Sandra said, although no one asked. "From high school."

  Ilene twisted around in her chair and looked toward toward Michael's table. "I don't know what you said to your old friend, Sandra, but he's leaving."

  "He put the tray down on the table, grabbed a few burgers, and he's out of here," Ed said, shooting Sandra a quizzical look. "Are you sure you're okay, Patterson? I still say you're looking a little green around the gills."

  "Just tired," she said. She was glad he was going. There was nothing more that could be said between them anyway. She pushed away the memories and turned to Carol Richter. "Now what were you saying about Dan Crivello in Accounting?"

  Carol, bless her, launched back into her story of corporate shenanigans, and for the next hour Sandra talked and laughed, and those good associates of hers never realized how hard it was to make idle conversation when your heart was laid bare for the world to see.

  #

  He couldn't stay there. He couldn't sit at the table and joke around with Tony and his family, knowing that Sandra Patterson was less than fifty feet away from him. The old crowd from St. Brendan's had kept up with one another, and the last he'd heard Sandra had been engaged to a middle-aged attorney and living somewhere in Sioux Falls. For all he knew, she'd married him and had a commuter relationship. He hadn't thought to check for a wedding ring.

  Her business card read "Patterson," but that didn't mean a hell of a lot. These days professional women often kept their maiden names in business. And the way Sandra had hung on to her independence years ago, he doubted she would have taken her husband's name unless it were Rockefeller.

  Besides, what difference did it make? She was part of his past, a memory, like the first time he'd heard the Beatles or driven a car. Something you looked back on and smiled over, then promptly forgot.

  Except that she was Sandra, the one he'd never been able to forget.

  He jumped into his truck and roared out onto nearly-deserted Jericho Turnpike.

  How many times had he wondered about her, asked their old friends about her, daydreamed about bumping into her on a Manhattan street and impressing the hell out of her with all he'd accomplished, all he'd become? The huge cathedral he was privileged to work on held so many of the hopes and dreams he'd wanted to share with her.

  Not once had his fantasies included White Castle, or the beat-up pickup truck he used on the weekends, or a black T-shirt that looked like an artifact from an old James Dean movie.

  Of all the worst damn times to see her again, this was it.

  All day long he'd rattled around that huge house of his, lonely as hell without his son, who was in Florida with Diana's parents. When he'd called earlier from the only working telephone in the neighborhood to speak with David and let him know he'd come through the hurricane safe and sound, the Bentleys had made it sound as if David owed his very survival to their child-rearing expertise.

  "Thank God, he was safe here," Margaret said, her voice still as identifiably midwestern as a field of corn. "I hate to think of what could have happened to him out there in the middle of nowhere."

  "The middle of nowhere" was a fifty-year-old community adjacent to Stony Brook University where professors rubbed elbows with nuclear physicists, but since Diana's death there'd been no reasoning with either Margaret or Art.

  They still saw Michael as they wanted to see him, as a rough and raw man who made a living with his hands and had never been good enough for their daughter.

  The fact that he'd found their darling daughter in bed with his best friend while their infant son slept five feet away didn't seem to matter to anyone but him.

  What Michael wanted to do was hop a plane to Florida, grab David and bring him back home where he belonged, but grandstand plays like that were the last thing he should be thinking of. David had had enough to deal with since he lost his mother and stepfather; stirring up family troubles would only hurt his son, and that kid had been hurt enough already.

  Besides, he understood the Bentleys a hell of a lot better than they thought. They weren't going to be happy with the restricted visitation rights they'd been granted when Michael got custody after their daughter's death. Hell, they weren't going to be happy until they had that kid locked up in their pink stucco house, afraid to breathe, afraid to eat, afraid to dream.

  Michael would kill before he let that happen to his son.

  And if keeping his son meant living like the medieval monk his neighbors teased him about being – then so be it.

  But today, with David a thousand miles away and the storm around him raging out of control, Michael had felt agitated and helpless. His feelings had intensified along with the hurricane's strength, and by the time Henry had passed and the cleanup had begun, Michael was a six-foot-four-inch mainspring ready to snap. His emotions were frayed, his heart ached for something he couldn't define, his normal good humor had gone the way of the receding tide.

  The friendly teasing of his friends and neighbors had gotten under his skin and pushed him closer to the edge.

  When everyone adjourned to the communal dinner table for the impromptu barbecue, Michael would have braved the worst Henry had to offer in order to get the hell away.

  He'd never felt more alone in his life.

  At least, he hadn't until he saw Sandra Patterson again, and seven years of wanting the chance to say he was sorry, seven years of wondering what might have been, rushed in on him and showed him what
a fool he'd been.

  He turned onto Harvest Drive and pulled into his driveway, barely avoiding another fallen oak tree. He cut the engine, and let the stillness envelop him.

  So, the worst had happened. He'd seen her again, and the pain and the longing were still there.

  So the hell what?

  He had a good life now, a damned good life, with work he loved and a son he cherished. He didn't need the approval of an old high-school sweetheart any more than he needed the approval of his in-laws or the man in the moon.

  The business card in his back pocket seemed to burn into his flesh. He reached back and pulled it out; without looking at it, he tore the card to pieces and tossed it to the wind, knowing it was already too late.

  One-eighty-eight Corey Place, Eaton's Harbor.

  He would do his damnedest to forget it.

  #

  A cold, miserable rain was giving the windshield wipers a run for their money when Ed stopped his Lincoln in front of Sandra's house two hours later.

  "The amenities are missing," she said, speaking over the drone of the news station on the car radio, "but you're all welcome to come in for a glass of wine."

  "Too wet out there for me," Carol said. "Besides, I'm a newsaholic. It's physically impossible for me to turn off a radio until I hear the Dow-Jones average."

  Ilene glanced out the window and shivered. "At least the car is heated," she said. "That's more than I have to look forward to at home."

  Ed, to her surprise, took her up on the offer.

  "Bad form, Gregory," she said a few minutes later after she'd lit hurricane lamps and poured him a glass of wine. "Ilene's suspicious enough about my promotion. You didn't need to throw fuel on the fire."

  Ed swirled the wine around, then took a sip. "McGrath should worry about her own ass before she starts worrying about anyone else's."

  Sandra made a face. "Vulgarly put, but effective." She poured herself a glass, and sat down behind her makeshift desk. "I am serious, though, Ed. I don't want any problems."

  "I'll handle McGrath. You just worry about getting those ledger sheets done for Monday."