By six a.m. she had made the deviled eggs; three dozen pinwheels of ham, cream cheese, and scallions; a medley of lightly steamed veggies and a virtuously low fat dip to enjoy with them. Everything had been carefully wrapped then stowed in her refrigerator until it was time to load them into Susan's minivan for the trip into town.
She took a bath, attended to her morning needs, then made herself eat a breakfast of bran cereal, skim milk, and decaf. All of that only took her up until seven-thirty which meant another four and a half hours until it was time to leave. She considered tidying up the front rooms but they were already immaculate. Since John's death, she had found herself taking great comfort from routine chores. She did the wash on Mondays, the floors on Tuesdays, the bathrooms on Wednesdays. Thursday nights were reserved for supermarket shopping. Once you added in her work schedule at Annie's Flowers and the hours she put in as a Golden Age volunteer, you had something that looked like a full life. It helped to know there was a reason to get up in the morning, some place where she was expected to be.
What was it the young people called it? Anal retentive or was it obsessive-compulsive. Either way, she was afraid the term fit. "You're getting too set in your ways, Ma," Sean had said the last time he came home for a visit. "Loosen up. You'll live longer."
Well, Sean, she thought as she settled down with the new John Grisham, when you get to be my age that may not sound quite so inviting.
#
As usual Susan was running late. She had to fix breakfast, clean up, make sure Jack knew where everything was and what he was supposed to bring to the picnic later, then put herself together in a reasonable facsimile of a successful real estate broker at a town picnic. She hated business casual dressing. How much easier things had been in the 1980s when all you needed was shoulder pads and a silk dress. She opted in the end for a nice pair of walking shorts, her best sandals, and a camp shirt. She wouldn't win any fashion awards but it would do.
She pulled up in front of the house where she'd grown up about quarter after the hour. She'd expected to find Claudia standing in the foot of the driveway, tapping her foot and glancing pointedly at her watch but to her surprise there was no sign of her mother anywhere.
"Oh great," she muttered as she pulled into the driveway and shifted into park. Claudia was probably inside on the telephone, reading poor Jack the riot act because her daughter was a few measly minutes late. If only her mother would learn to cut them some slack, but that was like asking the earth to stop spinning. Claudia was the way she was and only an act of God could change her.
Okay, Ma, you made your point. You can come out now.
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, stared at the clock on the dashboard then over at the quiet house.
She's your mother, Susan, even if she does drive you crazy. Get your butt out of the car and go see what's going on.
The back door was open. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. "Sorry I'm late, Ma," she called out, "but you know how it is with kids."
No response.
Her heartbeat quickened.
The kitchen was neat as a pin. No surprise there. Your average hospital operating room harbored more germs than her mother's trash bin.
"Ma?"
Still no response. Oh God. Terrible things happened to old people every day of the week. Wicked falls down the basement staircase. Slips in the bathtub. How many times had they told her the house was too big and too dangerous for a woman alone. Susan had even gathered up all the brochures from the new retirement village on the outskirts of town, the one with the staff on call twenty-four hours a day in case of emergency.
She burst into the living room and was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when she realized Claudia was curled up in the wing chair with a book open on her lap. For a second a river of fear flooded her body until she saw the gentle up and down motion of her mother's chest and relief almost knocked her flat. She placed a hand on her mother's forearm. How small her mother seemed. How vulnerable.
"Ma," she said softly. "Ma, wake up."
Claudia inhaled deeply, frowned, then opened her eyes. "You're late," she said.
"Since when do you take a nap in the morning."
"I didn't sleep last night," Claudia said. "Not that it's any of your business."
"Is something wrong?" Her mother managed a variety of medical problems, any one of which could cause the occasional bad night.
"You were there," Claudia said. "You saw them."
"I know," Susan said, amazed to find herself on the same side of an issue as her mother. "I can't believe it either."
"I gave Warren a piece of my mind," Claudia said as they headed for the kitchen to pack up the foods.
"What did Warren do?" She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out the covered platters of deviled eggs.
"He's responsible."
"All he did was let the guy stay in Ellie's old house."
"That's what he says, but I know him. He has ulterior motives."
"Now you sound like one of those conspiracy theorists Sean and Eileen idolize."
They looked at each other and Claudia was the first one to laugh. "Was I always this bad or is it that I'm getting old and set in my ways?"
Susan gave her a hug. "You were pretty much always this bad."
How fragile her mother felt, how painfully human.
"Did you see the way she looked at that man last night?" Claudia sounded wistful.
"I think we all did, Ma."
They fell silent for what seemed like a very long time.
"That's how I felt about your father," Claudia said at last. "That's just how it was between us."
Susan exhaled on a sigh. She and Jack loved each other very much but she wasn't sure they had ever looked at each other that way. "You don't think she'll bring him to the picnic, do you?"
"After the way she behaved last night, nothing would surprise me."
"Ma, really! It's not like she jumped his bones right there in Cappy's. They held hands. There isn't a law against it."
From the look on Claudia's face, it was clear her mother thought there should be.
And, if Susan were honest with herself, she just might agree.
Chapter Thirteen
Sweeney was the first one to notice.
They were setting up the sidewalk displays when Annie reached for one of the suncatchers and Sweeney grabbed her left hand.
"Your ring," she said, looking at Annie with a question in her eyes.
Annie's fingers automatically curled into a soft fist. "It was time," she said.
Curiosity won. "Does this have anything to do with the guy who showed up here the other day with your keys?"
She considered dodging the question but decided there was little point. After last night at Cappy's, she was bound to be at the top of the Shelter Rock Cove gossip hit parade.
"Yes," she said much to Sweeney's delight, "but the less we talk about it around Claudia, the happier we'll all be."
"She might not notice."
Annie arched a brow. "You don't believe that any more than I do, Sweeney."
"Is he coming to the picnic?"
"He's here already," she said. "I think he's over by the fire truck."
Warren would be there later, too. He'd told them that he was manning the grill for the Museum barbecue. Claudia and Roberta were busy setting up the huge tables of picnic food under the maple trees near the bandstand while Susan, who was in charge of the real estate office's spot not twenty feet away from Annie, seemed to be giving her the cold shoulder.
"What's with your sister-in-law?" Sweeney asked as they draped ropes of greenery along the edge of their display table. "Why is she ignoring you?"
"She is, isn't she," Annie said. "I was wondering if it was my imagination."
"Then your imagination just gave me frostbite." Sweeney feigned a shiver. "Don't tell me she's upset about what's-his-name."
"His name is Sam," Annie said, laughing, "and
I can't believe she'd be upset about something like this." It seemed so unlike Susan who always did her level best to keep Claudia from trying to run Annie's life.
"You know what happens when you drop a pebble into a pond, don' t you?"
"Ripples," Annie said. Concentric rings of them expanding outward until they ran out of water. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"That's easy," Sweeney said. "The Galloway clan is the pond and your Sam – well, he's a hundred pound boulder."
#
The Shelter Rock Cove Volunteer Fire Department consisted of seven members, one of whom was eight months pregnant and relegated to phone duty for the duration. They ranged in age from late teens to early sixties. They were probably the most unlikely-looking fire fighters Sam had ever seen but this strange mix of dentist, hair stylist, hardware store owner, short order cook, day care operator, and two lobster fishermen were as tightly bound to each other as any flesh-and-blood family could ever be.
"Now that Becky's not going out with us any more, we could really use a new face around the fire house," said Ethan Venable, the retirement age dentist. "You look like a prime candidate to me, son."
Sam couldn't deny the pull of the shiny red truck and the sense of community and friendship among the small crew of volunteers. "I'm staying in Ellie Bancroft's old place but it's only temporary." He mentioned something about being between jobs and Ethan nodded politely.
"Too bad," the man said, shaking Sam's hand. "You look like you'd fit in up here just fine."
If you'd said that to Sam two weeks ago, he would have suggested some serious couch time. He was a New Yorker, born and bred. He lived and breathed the crowds, the noise, the way life moved faster than the speed of light. But there he was, wandering along a village green, sampling Sarah's Famous Blueberry Pie and Amanda's World Class Potato Salad and enjoying every minute of it. Annie had lived her entire life in this small town. Except for her years in college, her views on life had been shaped right here among these people. He wanted to ask the woman at the photo booth if she had known Annie as a little girl. Tell me about her, he thought as he absorbed the sights and people around him. Was she quiet? Was she popular? Did everyone love her or didn't you even know she existed? He wanted to know about the night her parents died and her life changed forever. Did Kevin Galloway hold her in his arms and make it all better? Had he tried to kiss away her pain? Did she really love him or did she just love being part of a family?
He'd seen a picture of Galloway at Warren's place that morning. Max had disappeared somewhere in the house and he'd left Warren and Annie chatting in the breakfast room while he tried to track down the errant yellow Lab. Max being Max he wasn't hard to find, and Sam called to him from the door to the private study adjacent to Warren's bedroom. Max, however, was having none of it. He was curled up on a luminous Oriental carpet and ready to indulge in his favorite pastime of power napping.
"C'mon, old pal," he said, in what he hoped was a no-nonsense tone of voice. "You're going to wear out your welcome around here."
Max busied himself finding exactly the right scratching spot behind his left ear.
Nothing short of a 7.1 on the Richter scale was going to move Max until Max was good and ready. Sam turned to leave the room when his eye was caught by a display of framed photographs on the long table by the window. Unless he was crazy, there was one of him right in the front row. He crossed the room and plucked the photo from the pile and started to laugh. There he was in all his fifteen year old glory, looking up at the camera from the pier at the old marina near the World's Fair site. He was smiling one of those goofy, blissfully unself-conscious smiles that life usually knocks out of you by the time you're old enough to vote and looking pretty much like he had the world by the tail.
And maybe he had. His parents were still alive back then. He didn't have to worry about keeping a roof over his head and food in his brothers' and sisters' bellies. He skimmed the surface at school then dove head first into learning everything he could about the dirty, messy business of repairing boats. There was nothing glamorous about the work. You wouldn't get rich doing it. But no job before or since had ever made him happier than he was in those early days when life was an open road by the sea and the speed limit hadn't been invented yet.
He glanced at some of the other photos but didn't recognize anyone. He was about to turn away when a candid shot of a painfully young bride and groom caught his eye. The guy couldn't have been more than nineteen, if that. He was tall and rangy with broad shoulders and a wide smile, good-looking in an open, all-American way that was foreign to Sam. He looked like the kind of guy you met on an airplane and spilled your guts to between Cincinnati and Houston just because he was so damn easy to talk to. He had a thick head of curly dark hair and movie star good looks and the best luck in the world because Annie Lacy was his bride.
Jesus, how young she looked in her long white dress and veil, like a little girl playing dress up. Her long curly hair spilled over her shoulders, wild despite the obvious attempts to tame it. There were no dark circles under her beautiful blue eyes, no worry lines. She leaned into her husband as if he were her very foundation. The sight of the dead man's big hand on her delicate shoulder awakened some complicated feelings inside Sam, envy and sorrow and anger at a world that refused to allow happiness to last forever.
Hell, maybe it would have lasted forever. If Kevin Galloway hadn't died, Sam had no doubt she would still be at his side, still leaning against his breadth the way she had on their wedding day. The dark circles and worry lines would be way out there in the distant future; time enough when she was old and grey for things like that. She would have had the life he'd envisioned for her when they met in the parking lot of Yankee Shopper, a life that included kids and a dog and a big house and all the things the rest of the world took for granted because they seemed so easy and inevitable to everyone but people like Annie and Sam.
#
"You look wonderful, Annie! Did you lose weight?" Grace Lowell asked, eyeing Annie's hips.
"Wow, you're looking terrific." Bob Haskell's eyes actually twinkled as he looked at her. "Been on vacation?"
Sarah Wentworth leaned close to Annie's ear and dropped her voice to a whisper. "I promise I won't tell a soul. Who's your surgeon?"
Annie waited until Sarah was out of range before she turned to Sweeney. "What on earth is going on around here? That's the tenth person who commented on how great I look today."
"It's called love, honey," Sweeney said with a big smile. "L-U-V, and it shows."
Annie felt the blood rush to her cheeks. "I'd rather they thought it was a facelift."
"Sorry," Sweeney said. "Nobody will believe it, not with the way you two have been looking at each other."
Annie did her best not to cast a quick glance in Sam's direction but Sweeney caught her.
"See? And he's been doing the same thing."
They had tried very hard not to make a spectacle of themselves. She had work to do promoting Annie's Flowers to anyone who stopped to smell the roses while he had done an admirable job pretending he was interested in Phyllis Riley's beadwork and the big display of corncob art that was courtesy of Marge Rhodenbarr's third grade class at Shelter Rock Elementary. Warren showed up around two o'clock. He motioned Sam over to where he stood by the display table and engaged the two of them in an animated conversation about the museum that focused even more of the town's attention on the new couple.
Claudia stopped by to use the bathroom in Annie's Flowers. She managed a hello for Annie but breezed by Warren and Sam as if they weren't there at all.
"She'll get over it," Warren said. "Tomorrow it'll be Eileen's new haircut or the way Susan is bringing up her kids. The woman isn't happy unless she has something to complain about."
Warren was right but only up to a point. Annie knew that the reasons ran much deeper and so did the hurt. Because that's what it was. Claudia wasn't angry. She was hurting and Annie knew why.
"I'l
l be back in a second," she said then darted into the shop as Claudia was ready to leave.
"You look lovely today," Claudia said stiffly as Annie blocked the doorway. "That sweater flatters you."
"I've been hearing that all day," she said with a self-conscious laugh. "These compliments have made me wonder how bad I've been looking lately."
A long, awkward silence rose up between them.
"I should get back to the booth," Claudia said, shifting her purse from under her right arm to under her left. "Roberta couldn't make change if her life depended on it."
Annie placed a hand on the woman's forearm. "Claudia, about last night –"
"You don't owe me any explanations, Anne. You're a grown woman. You can make your own decisions."
"I should have said something," Annie said, fumbling for the right words. "At the very least, I could have introduced you."
"Perhaps you had other things on your mind."
Annie took a deep breath. The easy social lie was on the tip of her tongue but maybe this was the time to go a little deeper. "You're right," she said. "I did have other things on my mind. I'm sorry if I hurt you. That wasn't my intention."
Claudia held her gaze for a moment, then looked out toward the village green. Annie covered her ringless left hand with her right. Sounds of laughter and music drifted through the open door along with the delectable smells of hamburgers and hot dogs sizzling on the grill.
Please, Claudia, say something. . . anything. Tell me you were angry. Tell me he's not good enough for me. If we can talk about this, we're halfway there.
They had been through so many tough times together. She hated to think that her happiness could ever drive them apart.
#
"What took you so long?" Roberta demanded when Claudia returned to the booth. "I've been doing turnaway business."
Claudia looked at her friend of almost sixty years. "Am I a bitch?" she asked.
Roberta's round face froze. "What did you say?"
"Oh, don't act like you never heard the word before, Roberta Morgan, because I know you have. I've even heard you use it once or twice."
A Soft Place to Fall (Shelter Rock Cove) Page 20
