Ms. Simon Says

by Mary McBride

  He glanced at the man across the table to see if he was similarly moved by the approaching vision of Ms. Shelby Simon.

  Nope. Sam Mendenhall just looked pissed, and sounded it as well when he swore under his breath and then said, “Guess we better go see what she wants.”

  As Shelby approached the Mendenhall place, memories of past summers nearly brought tears to her eyes. My God. They’d been impossibly young and incredibly stupid back then. All of them. She and Beth and Sam and whatever young swain she might have had her eye on at the time.

  She thought about that final summer they were all together, and wondered now if she’d do again what she did then—advise seventeen-year-old Beth to go to college rather than elope with nineteen-year-old Sam. He had signed up for the army and was headed for Fort Benning, GA, hot to make his little Beth his bride before he left until Shelby intervened, convincing her sister that it was in her best interest to wait at least a year or two.

  “If Sam really loves you, he’ll wait,” Ms. Simon had said. She could still almost hear herself, such a wise big sister, so sure, so absolutely certain of her own rock-solid and sensible advice.

  But then Sam didn’t wait, did he? He’d barely gotten out of boot camp before sending Beth a Dear Jane letter, telling her he’d married a girl he met down there in Georgia.

  Then Beth hated both Sam and Shelby, and Shelby hated Sam, and neither of them knew how Sam felt about anything because neither Shelby nor Beth ever saw him again.

  What a big fucking mess.

  The mere sight of the Mendenhall cabin up ahead brought it all back with a vengeance now.

  And then the sight of two men coming out the door onto the cabin’s little front porch made her stop dead in her tracks. Mick Callahan, of course, was a cinch to recognize, not only from his ratty jeans and stupid duct-taped vest, but also from the way her heartbeat stuttered the moment she saw him.

  But the other man? Who...?

  Shelby squinted in the sunlight, bringing the man more clearly into focus, believing at first that it was Mr. Mendenhall because he looked a lot like Sam’s father and because the man moved like a much older person. He even used a cane.

  But wait. Hadn’t her mother told her that Mr. Menden-hall passed away a few years ago?

  She walked forward, stumbling once over a circle of stones outlining an old fire pit, still staring, beginning to feel oddly out of sync with the time and place.

  Was that...? No. It couldn’t be Sam. It just couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  The closer she got to the cabin, the more it seemed she was having an out-of-body experience or perhaps time traveling.

  Up on the porch, he leaned on the cane and stretched out his right hand toward her. “Shelby Simon,” he said, grinning. “Still giving advice, I see.”

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  His hand was still reaching out. “It’s okay, Shelby. Come on up here. I’m not mad anymore.” He laughed. “At least not enough to kill you.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mother, did you know that Sam Mendenhall is back? Here. At the lake.”

  Linda Simon looked up from the graph paper spread out on her worktable and saw her daughter’s anxious face with its flashing eyes and flushed cheeks. Only seconds earlier she’d heard Shelby’s footsteps stomping up to her third-floor office and Linda had thought the proverbial shit was about to hit the ballroom fan. Thank God this fuss was going to be about Sam, she thought, and not about herself and Harry.

  “Of course, dear,” she replied in her calmest, most maternal voice. “I know he’s back. In fact, I was the one who suggested we hire him as our security person a few months ago. Why do you ask?”

  “Why do I ask?” her daughter shrieked, lifting her hands toward the chandelier over her head. “Why do I ask? My God, Mom. Does Beth know about this?”

  “About Sam being back? No, I don’t think so,” Linda said, knowing damn well that her younger daughter didn’t have a clue. “I think Beth had already left for California when he arrived.”

  “And it never occurred to you that she might want to know?” Shelby asked accusingly. “That Sam’s back after all these years. He’s back and he’s unattached.”

  “No, Shelby, it didn’t occur to me. Furthermore, I doubt that your sister would be the least bit interested considering that she’s living with someone at the moment.”

  “That painter guy,” Shelby said with a snort and a dismissive wave of her hand. “She may be living with him, Mom, but she’s still single. And so is Sam.”

  “Yes, and they don’t need you poking your nose in their lives, either, Ms. Simon. Take my advice for a change, Shelby, and mind your own business.”

  Hoping to bring the conversation to an end, Linda returned her attention to the table and the sweater design she’d been drafting on her graph paper, as if to say I’m working here. Maybe her daughter would take the hint. Or not. God love her, Shelby could be pretty dense when she was on a mission, which she apparently was at the moment. She had inherited her perseverance, otherwise known as mule-headed stubbornness, from her father.

  “What’s wrong with Sam’s leg, Mom?”

  Linda looked up again. “Pardon me?” she said, pretending she hadn’t heard the question perfectly.

  “What’s wrong with Sam’s leg? He limps and uses a cane.”

  “Yes, I noticed that. I have no idea what the problem is.”

  Actually, she knew exactly what the problem was, but she’d promised Terry Mendenhall, Sam’s mother, whom she’d known for nearly all of her fifty-six years, that she wouldn’t breathe a word about his injury or the place on the other side of the globe where it had happened. Sam, it seemed, not only didn’t want to talk about it, but also apparently wasn’t at liberty to disclose any details.

  “Shelby, sweetie, I’ve really got a ton of work to finish here.” She glared down at her design in progress now, picked up a red pencil, and began coloring squares. “Can we talk about this later?”

  Miraculously, just then the phone rang, and after Linda answered and began a conversation about fabric care and dry cleaning versus hand washing, she offered her daughter a helpless shrug, indicating that she would be on the phone for a while.

  Shelby sighed, waved good-bye, and went back downstairs.

  Undoubtedly to call her sister. She was such a buttinski.

  Shelby sat sideways in one of the Adirondack chairs on the lawn, her legs draped over one of the flat wooden arms, while she entered Beth’s cell phone number into her own cell phone. The two of them had never greeted each other with normal telephone etiquette. They just started talking. So when Beth said “Hello,” Shelby replied, “Guess who’s back at Heart Lake?”

  “Shelby, I’m on a ladder right now, painting trim on a second-story window. I don’t have time to play Twenty Questions.”

  “Guess who’s back at the lake?”

  “You,” Beth said.

  Shelby rolled her eyes and raked her fingers through her hair. “No, I mean other than me.”

  “What are you doing back at the lake?” her sister asked.

  “It’s a long story. Dammit, Beth. Guess who’s here.” Her sister was silent a moment, and then said, “You know I’m up so high here that I can actually see San Francisco Bay. Which should give you a good indication of how badly I’ll be injured when I fall off this fucking ladder, Shelby. Can we talk later?”

  “Sam,” Shelby said.

  “What?”

  “Sam’s back. Here. At the lake.”

  Beth didn’t respond, so Shelby asked, “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you,” she muttered.

  “He’s not only back. He’s not married anymore.” Again, there was silence on the other end of the line, but Shelby was pretty sure it wasn’t because her sister had fallen off the ladder.

  “Beth, he’s back,” she said softly, with just a hint of urgency, “and he’s single.”
/>   “He’s dead to me.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this now, okay? Don’t call me. I’ll call you when I have time. Give Mom and Dad my love. Hey, are they back together yet?”

  “What do you mean, are they back together yet?” Shelby asked at the same time that her gaze drifted across the lawn to the driveway, where Callahan was climbing out of his Mustang. Her heart did that funny thing again, like stubbing its toe.

  Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Beth was saying “. . . about five or six months ago. He moved into the carriage house. I figured since you’re there, you finally knew.”

  Shelby was watching Callahan’s lean-hipped, tight-jean progress across the lawn toward her, only half listening to her sister. “You figured I knew what?”

  He edged a hip onto the arm of the adjacent Adirondack chair, cocked one leg, crossed his arms, and looked down at her while Beth was saying, “I figured since you’re up there that you know that Mom and Dad are separated. Or at least they were. I haven’t talked to either one of them in a couple weeks.”

  “Separated.” Shelby echoed the word as if she had no idea what it meant or even what language it was. Portuguese, maybe. Or Urdu. “What do you mean?”

  “Listen,” her sister said, sounding more than a little irritated, “go ask Mom, will you? Or ask Dad. It’s clouding up here and I’ve got to get this trim done. I’ll call you later in the week.”

  Beth hung up, leaving Shelby blinking stupidly while she listened to the dial tone.

  “What’s the matter?” Callahan asked. “Bad news?” “You could say that. My sister just told me that my parents are separated. Separated! Or at least that they were.” She snapped her cell phone closed. “I can’t believe this.”

  She swung her legs off the arm of the chair and stood up. “I don’t know why nobody ever tells me anything,” she muttered as she started up the lawn toward the house.

  At her back she heard a chuckle, followed by “Maybe they don’t want your advice.”

  Shelby would’ve flipped him the bird over her shoulder, but she wasn’t sure whether or not that constituted threatening an officer of the law.

  Her mother wasn’t up in the ballroom. Instead, there was a note propped on her desk that read “Gone to town. Back around six.”

  Her father wasn’t in the carriage house, where “Gone fishing” was scribbled on a small chalkboard near the refrigerator.

  Thoroughly confounded now, as well as supremely pissed, Shelby stalked back to the grouping of lawn chairs where the lieutenant was still sitting, gazing placidly out at the lake.

  She plopped in the chair beside his and muttered, “Nobody’s home.”

  “They’re probably avoiding you.”

  She aimed a glare at him, but then almost had to laugh in spite of her current mood. “You’re probably right.”

  What did Beth know anyway? Unlike Shelby, she didn’t spend much time worrying about other people’s problems. Maybe she’d just invented that separation business to get back at Shelby for mentioning Sam or to punish her once more for the advice that broke them up. Bethie could be pretty unforgiving.

  In an attempt to forget the whole thing, she forced herself to smile. “Hey! Want to go for a walk, Callahan? Or a drive? There’s some pretty countryside around here.” She leaned over to look at his watch. It was almost noon. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot. What time did you plan on leaving?”

  “I’m not,” he said. “I talked to my captain earlier, and they’ve extended my assignment. I’m going to hang around here for a while. A couple more days, anyway.”

  “Oh.” Thank God that innocuous little word had popped out of her mouth instead of the “Woo hoo” that she was feeling. On the other hand, maybe this wasn’t such good news. Maybe she should be feeling scared again.

  “Does that mean that they think this situation’s gotten worse?” she asked. “Do they know something?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Just taking the standard precautions under the circumstances. It’s no big deal.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Phew.

  He levered out of his chair and held his hand out to her. “How ’bout if I take you out to lunch? I’m famished.”

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. “I haven’t fed you. Some hostess I am.”

  “That’s okay. I’m not exactly a guest. Come on.”

  The restaurant Shelby Simon chose—The Blue Inn— overlooked Blue Lake, which was even more stunning in its reflected autumn colors than Heart Lake was. Maybe that was because this lake was smaller, Mick thought as he looked through the expansive picture window by their table. It was a cozy lake. That notion struck him as pretty funny since he wasn’t an outdoorsman by any stretch of the imagination, or someone who appreciated pastoral landscapes. He was an urban animal. At least since the age of fourteen when he first came to Chicago and the concrete shores of Lake Michigan.

  Shelby Simon, on the other hand, seemed as content up here in rural Michigan as she had in the Windy City. Well, maybe content wasn’t the right word. She fit in here. She seemed at ease, as much as she had seemed at ease in Chicago. She looked even better here, in her jeans and that mouthwatering sweater and her long hair wind-blown from their recent drive.

  She had ordered a margarita, and Mick had figured what the hell. He wasn’t on duty. Not technically anyway. He was on vacation. So he asked the waitress to bring him a beer.

  “Nice place,” he said, putting the cold brown bottle back on the little square coaster with a line drawing of the rustic building they were sitting in right then.

  “It is nice, isn’t it?” She put her own glass down, but not before her tongue peeked out to catch a few big crystals of salt from the rim. “It’s been here forever. I’m glad they’re still open. Most places around here close right after Labor Day when all the summer people go home.”

  “Pretty good deal,” he said, “being able to get out of the city every summer.”

  She nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, it was. I didn’t spend a summer in Chicago until I was nineteen or twenty.”

  “You were lucky.” Even better, she looked as if she totally agreed. There was nothing in her expression that gave the impression of entitlement he so often witnessed with people who had money. Shelby Simon, of the big Victorian house and the recycled family name and the fancy Canfield Towers pad, struck him as surprisingly unaffected by it all.

  “Mm.” There went that pretty pink tongue again when she took another sip of her drink. Then she tilted her head to one side and fixed him with her glossy, cognac-colored eyes. “So, Mick Callahan, tell me about you. Have you always lived in Chicago?”

  For a second, Mick had the damnedest reaction to her question. Maybe it was her earnest expression as she gazed at him across the table. Maybe it was the beer on his empty stomach, but suddenly he felt like telling her his life story. His true life story as opposed to the abridged and cleaned-up version he usually told everyone else.

  What the hell was he thinking? That she’d somehow put all the details together and then tell him just where he’d managed to go wrong? Or point out things, moments, incidents that he should have noticed at the time in order not to have been flattened by the truth when he finally learned it? What was she going to do—give him advice on how not to screw up in the future? Not that he didn’t need it, but...

  “Tell me about your family,” she said now.

  He must’ve had an odd expression on his face, because Shelby immediately followed up her question with an apology.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t prying, Mick. Really. I just thought since we’ll obviously be spending some time together, it would be nice to know you better. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t offend me,” he said. “It’s just not a very interesting story. My father walked out on us when I was about two months old, and then my mother dragged me around the country for the next thirteen years until we finally
landed in Chicago.”

  This, of course, was the abridged version. Even so, the look on Shelby’s face seemed genuinely warm and sympathetic.

  “Doesn’t sound like such a great way to grow up,” she murmured.

  “Well, it was a great way to grow up fast.”

  “And cynical,” she added.

  “Yeah. That, too, I guess.” Jesus. He was already tired of talking about himself, so he changed the subject. “What’s the deal with you and Sam Mendenhall?”

  She looked surprised, then picked up her margarita again, as if she needed a little liquid courage before she answered. “There’s no deal,” she finally said.

  “I got the impression there was something between the two of you in the past.”

  Another sip. Another lick of salt. “Not between Sam and me. Between Sam and my sister, Beth.”

  Before she could elaborate, the waitress came to take their order. While Shelby debated aloud between the patty melt and the tuna salad, Mick found himself feeling strangely relieved that the relatively good-looking gimp on the north side of the lake wasn’t going to give him any competition, and then realizing—son of a bitch—that for the first time since Julie died, he was actually interested in a woman for something more than a bleary, boozy hour or two of medicinal sex.

  Something told him he was in trouble here, and it had nothing to do with letter bombs.

  After lunch, Callahan was quiet, nearly grim, as they began their drive back to Heart Lake. Come to think of it, he’d been pretty quiet all through their meal, too. Even though he’d insisted that her personal questions hadn’t bothered him, Shelby was convinced otherwise. It seemed pretty clear to her that Lieutenant Mick Callahan wanted to keep their relationship on a strictly professional basis.

  Fine.

  No problem.

  She had a talent for picking the wrong men anyway, so the fact that she was attracted to Callahan served as a warning all by itself. It never ceased to amaze her that she could fix her friends up with people who turned out to be their ideal mates. There was terminally shy Stanley Feldman who suddenly discovered he had a personality in the company of Cathie White. On a hunch, Shelby had fixed up confirmed bachelor Michael Marvin with her old friend, Susan Kent, then a single mother of three. Michael proposed on their second date, and now Susan was a happily married mother of five with another one on the way.