"That may be but I've certainly never heard you use it. Not once in all these years."
"Well, you're hearing it now." She glanced around to make sure nobody was within earshot. "Do you think I'm a bitch?"
"Good heavens, Claudia, what kind of thing is that to ask?"
"It's a perfectly reasonable question. I've been doing some thinking today and I haven't liked some of the conclusions I've come up with."
"Were you watching The View again?"
"None of your business. Now are you going to answer me or not?"
Roberta looked like she would rather be any place on earth but there. "That's a terrible question. You've put me in an impossible spot."
Poor Roberta. She dithered on, never quite realizing she had answered Claudia's question.
Yes, you're a bitch, Claudia Galloway. It's official. Are you happy now?
The thought had first occurred to her when Susan told her she had always been a difficult woman to be around. It wasn't at all the way Claudia viewed herself. John, bless his heart, had always told her she was the sunshine in his life, the one person he could count on to be in his corner no matter what. They had been through their share of tough times, things she wouldn't tell a living soul about, but their love for each other had never wavered. He had thought of her as an even-tempered woman, good-natured and easy-going. Everything her children thought she wasn't. Susan would have driven right off the road laughing if Claudia had ever told her any of that and she had no doubt the rest of her children would do the same.
Like just now at the store with Annie.
Would it have hurt you to bend just a little? She was reaching out to you and you wouldn't give an inch.
It wasn't that she wanted Annie to be unhappy. What kind of woman would she be if she wished unhappiness on the girl she'd raised as one of her own? A bitch, that's what, the worst kind of bitch. Heartless and unyielding. But oh God how it hurt to think of her with a man who wasn't Kevin. In a way it was like losing him all over again.
She had never wanted another man after Jack's death. Oh, she had had plenty of offers from some of the kindly gentlemen of Shelter Rock Cove but she had spurned all of their advances. Jack was the love of her life, her only true love, and there wasn't a man on earth who could compare. She had always believed it was like that between Annie and Kevin. Kevin had worshipped Annie. The family used to tease him about the poetry and the flowers. His brothers and sisters were practical, down-to-earth types who wouldn't be caught dead knowing the difference between a couplet and a sonnet. But Kevin not only knew the difference, he wanted to tell you all about it and he did so in a way that made his words a permanent part of your heart.
Annie had glowed in those early years. The whole town had basked in that glow. KevinandAnnie. AnnieandKevin. You couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Even today you couldn't look at Annie and not see Kevin, so tall and handsome, right there by her side.
Tears welled up and she reached into her purse and retrieved her sunglasses and slipped them on. Last night, seeing Annie hand in hand with someone who wasn't Kevin – well, there was no explaining how that had felt.
Had she really been in denial all this time? It didn't seem possible but what other explanation could there be for that feeling of utter shock . Up until that moment she had been able to pretend that Kevin was in the next room, or maybe on the next block, beyond her reach but not gone. Never that. But nothing could explain away the sight of Annie, luminous and filled with joy, as she looked up at that wiry, edgy man who had walked into Cappy's with Warren.
Get a grip on yourself, Claudia, or else everyone in town will be talking about the way you fell apart during the Labor Day festivities.
That would give the town years of good gossip and she wasn't about to make that mistake.
Next to her, Roberta was chatting away like a magpie, telling Adele Roscoe and Jean Gillooley all about the Adam Winters seminar they had taken and how they were thinking of becoming investors and Claudia all but leaped for her best friend's crepey throat.
"Now what did you go and blab to Adele and Jean for?" she demanded the second the women wandered off. "Why don't you call our children too while you're at it?"
"They saw the brochure sticking out of my tote bag," Roberta said with a mutinous look in her beady little eyes. "What was I supposed to do, lie to them?"
"Yes," Claudia snapped. "You could have told them about the seminar without blabbing our business all over town."
"Remember that question you asked me a few minutes ago? I think I can answer it now."
"Oh, hush up," Claudia said. "Why don't you just –"
Well, of all the nerve! Annie's new friend – what was his name, Sam Something or other – was heading toward their display like he had an urgent need to win a mammogram and help fund the senior center.
Roberta squinted in his direction. "Isn't that –"
"Yes," Claudia hissed, "and if you –"
"Mrs. Galloway?" He stopped right there in front of them and stuck out his right hand. "We didn't have the chance to meet last night but Warren and Annie told me a lot about you."
She knew his name was Sam Butler and she had no choice but to shake his hand. His grip was strong but not too familiar. She was glad he knew his place.
Roberta gave her a poke in her ribs.
"This is my friend Roberta Morgan," she said although why Bobbi couldn't introduce herself was beyond her.
Roberta eagerly shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you. I saw you last night with our Annie." She actually batted her eyelashes at the man. "I must say you make an adorable couple."
He thanked Roberta but it was clear her comment had embarrassed him.
"I heard you talking to the other two ladies about a financial seminar."
Claudia arched a brow. "You were eavesdropping?"
"Yep," he said with an easy smile. "Afraid so."
Roberta, ever oblivious to nuance, plunged right in. "I have an extra brochure if you'd like it."
He flashed a big toothpaste commercial smile at her foolish friend who all but swooned. "I wouldn't mind taking a look at it."
Roberta whipped out the brochure and handed it to him. "You can keep it if you like."
He wasn't listening. He flipped through the pages, eyes scanning the columns of text like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. She and Roberta exchanged looks.
So handsome! Roberta's look said. And so interested in finance.
He's just looking at the pictures, Claudia's own look retorted. There was something scruffy about him, even though his clothes were clean and relatively stylish. But then didn't they all wear jeans and sweaters these days, as if someone somewhere had decreed everyone under fifty must wear the uniform or be drummed out of their generation. Just a touch of carelessness that some women found very attractive. From the foolish look on Roberta's face, it was clear that she was one of them but not Claudia. She had always loved the way her Jack had looked in a suit and tie, so proper and distinguished and above reproach. Kevin hadn't been quite so formal but he had always been perfectly turned out in tweed sport coats and fine cords that befitted his position as a teacher.
" . . . we went to his seminar the other day," Roberta was saying. "In fact we're –"
"Bobbi," Claudia interrupted her friend, "we need some more of the sign-up sheets. Would you see if you can find Dr. Markowitz and ask her if she has any she could spare?"
"In a minute," Roberta said, glaring at Claudia. She turned back to Sam Butler. "He offers a –"
"Roberta." Claudia employed the same tone of voice she used to use when her teenagers came home after curfew. "We need them now."
Roberta smiled at Annie's friend. "Why don't you keep one of those brochures," she said amiably. "I never knew money could be so much fun until I started listening to Adam Winters on the radio!"
From the look on this Sam Butler's face, Claudia knew she had to say something . After the unpleasant response from Sus
an and Annie the other night, she intended to keep her further workshop plans to herself.
"Roberta is very enthusiastic," she offered, a bit discomfited by the look of curiosity in his eyes. "We took a class in Japanese flower arranging and by the time it was over she was ready to become a Zen master."
He laughed which was exactly what she had hoped he would do. His rough edges weren't quite as rough as she'd first thought.
"One of my sisters is the same way," he said in what was really a very friendly tone of voice for a New Yorker. "She took three classes in oil painting and was ready to move to Paris and live in a garret."
She smiled despite herself. "I have two shelves filled with my experiments in pottery. I tried to bribe my children but even they won't touch them."
It was clear to Claudia that he was sizing her up in much the same way she was sizing him up and she wondered what family stories Annie might have shared with this stranger, stories that maybe Claudia herself knew nothing about.
You may not last, she thought as she smiled at him. You might be nothing more than a fling.
But there was something in the way he looked across the green at Annie that told her she was dead wrong.
Chapter Fourteen
"You're right," Ellen said to Hall as another wave of visitors drifted away from their booth. "He does look familiar."
"I know," he said as they watched Sam Butler attempt to charm Claudia Galloway. "Maybe he did some repairs on one of my boats."
Ellen groaned and hit him in the arm with a rolled up mammogram fact sheet. "And since I've never stepped foot on one of your boats, how would that make him look familiar to me."
He blinked at her in surprise. "You've been on the sloop."
"Afraid not, Cap'n."
"The small sailboat."
"Nope."
"The kayak I keep up at the cabin."
"Not even close."
He looked at her. "We're going to have to remedy that, Markowitz."
She ignored him. "Do you really think he worked on one of your boats?"
"No," Hall said, "but it's the best I can come up with. The guy's from New York and I'm down there once every two years if I'm lucky. It doesn't seem likely our paths would've crossed, does it?"
Her eyes widened. "He's from New York?"
"His accent's worse than yours," he said, ducking a paper clip tossed in his direction.
"Did you know I can peg a New Yorker to within two blocks of his last apartment?" She pushed her unruly mop of red hair off her face. "I can almost tell you what floor you lived on."
"Ten bucks says you can't even name the borough."
She threw back her head and laughed. "You're on, Doctor. Easiest ten bucks I'll make this year."
#
Adam Winters had put together a first rate, four-color, glossy pile of bullshit designed to romance the bucks out of retirement plans up and down the East Coast. He plastered his boyish face on the cover – big guileless smile, shock of hair flopping over his unlined forehead – in an attempt to charm his 60-something, female audience into believing he was no more threatening than one of their own children. He was the son who came to dinner every Sunday, the one who brought flowers and a box of candy and telephoned every morning to see how you were.
The dream son who did all that and tripled your investment before the first year was out.
Sam knew the technique. He'd seen the way it worked a thousand times during his years on the Street. He'd employed a few of the tricks himself on more than one occasion, There was nothing innovative about anything he'd read in the text, no guarantees that you would end up with more money than you'd started with. Winters fished familiar waters. Listen to me and you won't end up in one of those nursing homes that stink of urine and decay. I'll show you how you can protect yourself.
They were all scared. You couldn't grow old in this country and not be. You wanted to make sure your time ran out before your money did and many a fortune had been made by capitalizing on those fears.
He could tell Claudia some of these things but she wouldn't believe him. Didn't you earn your living the same way? she would ask. Why is this so different?
And he wouldn't be able to answer because he was every bit as guilty as Adam Waters and all the other half-baked scam artists who had come along in the last hundred years.
It wasn't a legacy he was proud of.
A tall skinny woman with a curly mop of red hair appeared at Sam's right elbow.
"Dr. Markowitz," Claudia said with a friendly smile. "How are you enjoying your first Labor Day picnic in Shelter Rock Cove?"
"Please call me Ellen," she said with a smile for both of them. "We can save the 'Dr. Markowitz' for the lady with the stethoscope."
"Sam Butler," he said, extending his hand. No point to waiting for Claudia to introduce them.
"Queens," she said, tilting her head to the right. "Somewhere around Bayside."
He nodded. "Not bad. Bayside it is."
She smiled at him but there was nothing flirtatious about it. "It was either Queens or western Suffolk County."
"Manhattan," he guessed. "Upper West Side near Columbus Circle."
"Guilty as charged. What gave me away?"
"Nothing," he said. "It was the first place I could think of."
She laughed and even Claudia joined in.
"I was just saying to Hall that you look familiar," she said. "Have we met before?"
He shook his head. "I didn't spend too much time around Columbus Circle."
"You must have one of those faces," she said. "I'll bet you hear that all the time."
He didn't but he let it pass. Ellen Markowitz seemed like a nice enough woman even if she did have an ulterior motive. Sam had noticed her talking earnestly with the Good Doctor Talbot and Annie had told him they were partners in an ob-gyn practice. Talbot had probably sent her over here on some sort of half-baked reconnaissance mission.
"This is your fist Labor Day picnic in Shelter Rock Cove, isn't it, dear?" Claudia asked.
"It is," Ellen said, "and I'm amazed by it. Our booth has been so busy there hasn't been time to wander around and sample some of those delicious foods I see everyone enjoying."
"Have a deviled egg," Claudia offered, reaching into the ice chest for the platter. "You too," she said to Sam.
Ellen reached for an egg then caught sight of the brochure in Sam's hand. "Oh, what's this!" She bent down and peered at the cover then chuckled. "Don't tell me you're one of his devotees."
Claudia yanked the glossy folder away from Sam. "Roberta and I take workshops," she said with a visible straightening of her Yankee spine. "Mr. Winters is quite a showman."
"My aunt got involved with one of those radio financial wizards," Ellen said, shaking her head. "She ended up losing everything but her house. Stay away from guys like this, Claudia. They have radar when it comes to women and money."
"Good heavens," said Claudia with a little laugh. "You take these things much too seriously. For us it's investments one week and tai chi the next." She looked calm and completely in control, not at all the type of woman who handed over the keys to the kingdom without a full background check.
They were usually the first to fall.
"You tell her," Ellen said, turning to Sam.
"Why me?" A ripple of alarm moved along his spine.
"You seemed pretty absorbed in that brochure when I barged in. I just assumed –" Something in his eyes must have registered on her because she stopped abruptly. "Delicious deviled eggs," she said, wiping the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin. "Good to see you, Claudia. Great to meet you, Sam. I'd better get back to the booth before Hall sends out a search party."
"Well," said Claudia as the doctor dashed off across the green, "that was certainly rude."
Sam, who wasn't about to stick a toe in the waters of Shelter Rock Cove politics, kept quiet and thanked his lucky stars.
#
He brought her icy cold lemonade, a platter piled hi
gh with fried clams and fresh lobster meat and french fries, and a slice of juicy blueberry pie fit for the gods.
"Sam, this is too much!" Annie said, laughing, as he placed the bounty down on the table in front of her. "You have to share it with me."
"I was hoping you'd say that." He reached for a crisp, golden curl of clam then popped it into her mouth.
"I've missed you," she said, popping a fry into his mouth in return. "I hope this hasn't been too deadly dull for you."
"I hung out with the fire department," he said. "The dentist tried to recruit me but I told him I was just passing through."
Some of the day's brightness dimmed. "Are you just passing through?"
"I can't freeload off Warren forever."
"Sure you could," she said lightly. "Warren loves you. He'd be thrilled if you decided to make Shelter Rock Cove your home."
He didn't say anything and who could blame him. She had backed him into a spot like one of those terrible women on the afternoon talk shows, the ones who ended up stalking some poor guy and soaping his car windows when he took another woman to dinner.
Well, now you've done it, Galloway. Why don't you just sew your heart to the sleeve of your sweater while you're at it.
"Forget I said that." She picked at the lobster with a plastic fork. "It's the lemonade speaking."
"I didn't know I'd find you here," he said quietly. "I wasn't expecting this."
"Really," she said, wishing she could crawl under the bandstand and stay there until New Year's Eve, "you don't have to say anything. This is what happens when your last date was during the Reagan Administration."
She was embarrassed and upset. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and the fact that there was nothing he could say to make it all better tore at his heart. He wanted to tell her that this was forever, that nothing in the world could tear him away from her but that would be unfair to her. He had no right to ask her to hand over her heart into his keeping when, hovering out there just out of sight, was the real world and all that went with it. One day soon it would come calling for him and he would have no choice but to answer.
A Soft Place to Fall (Shelter Rock Cove) Page 21
