Caitlin was shaking her head. She knew a few poses, but had never had much formal instruction.
The fitness center wasn’t large. There was one weight stack in the center of the room. Seth was using it. He was facing its tower, extending his arms, then pulling a bar down to his shoulders. He didn’t notice her coming in. The other machines were placed to face the windows: two stationary bikes, a treadmill, a Pilates reformer, and a rowing machine. Caitlin was curious about the reformer, but she had no idea how to use it. The rowing machine was similar to the ergometers the crew team had used in college. She would use that.
It took her a long time to warm up, but eventually the endorphins kicked in, flooding her with a sense of well-being, making her feel focused and alive. She could do this forever. She was going to do this forever. Her form was good; she had her core engaged, her shoulders—
“Ah, Caitlin?”
She glanced over her shoulder. It was Yvette.
“I’ve never been in a place like this,” Yvette said timidly. “Where should I start?”
Caitlin stopped at the top of the drive, keeping her legs straight, her arms holding the tension. She looked around the room. Norma was on the treadmill. April and Heather were side by side on the two stationary bikes, but Heather was talking, not pedaling.
“Heather looks like she is done. Go ask her to get you started.”
Yvette looked uncertain.
“No, it’s fine. She’s just sitting there.”
Caitlin started to row again, but she watched as Yvette approached Heather. Heather clearly had been so busy talking that she hadn’t noticed that she had stopped exercising, which of course made April laugh her hacking laugh. Heather started pedaling furiously again. A minute later Yvette left the studio.
Caitlin couldn’t recapture the glow. She tried for another ten minutes and then gave up. Seth was still using the weight machines, and once again Heather had stopped pedaling.
She wiped down the machine. Norma asked her if she would like to use the treadmill. Caitlin shook her head. April pointed to the reformer and asked Caitlin if she knew what it was. Caitlin told her, but said that she didn’t know how to use it.
“Do you think Seth does?” April asked.
They all looked at him. He was doing legwork. His T-shirt and gym shorts were gray, both sporting the Street Boards logo. The shirt was marked with sweat, and the ends of his hair around his neck were dark and damp. He was absorbed in the exercise, exhaling regularly with each exertion, putting in extra effort at the end of each rep to keep the weight stack from crashing down.
“He’s more likely to be able to figure it out than the rest of us,” Caitlin answered. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“Oh...would you ask him for us?”
“You can ask him yourselves.” After living with him for a week, were they still thinking of him as a star? “He won’t bite.”
Back in her room Caitlin took a bath. The tub was so deep that the water came up to her shoulders. The Iris products had a sweet, creamy scent. She swaddled herself in the robe and sat down in the armchair to read. She liked reading in a comfortable chair, and the chairs at the Best Western had been designed to use at tables.
She must have fallen asleep because she suddenly jerked awake. There was a steady tapping on the wall behind her shoulder. Was it construction noise?
No, the construction was on the other side of Seth’s room and the stairs. This must be Seth.
She should ignore it. That was the smart thing to do. And the honorable decision. Sending messages through the wall didn’t seem like a great start on living up to their pledge to Sally.
The tapping continued.
She tapped back.
The return tapping started moving, tracing a line toward the back on the hotel. Oh, the balcony. He wanted her to go out on the balcony.
The door was so heavily curtained with the purple-and-cream drapes that she hadn’t thought to check it out before. She lifted aside the fabric and opened the door. The balcony was small, cut off on one side by the wall of her bathroom. A chest-high fence-type railing protected the front, and a four-foot brick wall divided her balcony from the one belonging to the room next door.
Seth was standing on his side of the wall. His hands were linked, and his forearms were resting on the balcony’s front railing—since what was chest high on her was a lot lower on him. His hair was rumpled as if he had dried it with a towel, but not combed it, and he was wearing khakis and a Street Boards rugby shirt.
Well, crap. Crap, crap, crap.
Sequestered-jury sex, Mars-expedition sex, even the friends with benefits idea...thinking like that suggested that sex was sort of a joke, something that you could control, something that had no power. But it wasn’t. Not at all.
Seth’s shirt fell loosely from his shoulders. If he tucked it in, she would see his lean torso and the finely shaped muscles at the back of his khakis.
Her room with its dense, soft sheets and sweet, earthy fragrances was about magic and heightened moments. It was about mystery and intimacy, about reaching and yearning, imagining and longing.
“I hope you weren’t tapping Morse code,” she said lightly. She needed to keep things that way. “I don’t know it.”
“You think I do?” He looked at her, a quick grin flashing across his face, and she had to force herself to breathe.
Then he turned back to look at the parking lot; his voice changed, becoming low and serious. “This is the only balcony on this side of the inn. There’s nothing odd about us chatting out here.”
“No.” What was he getting at? “Although I probably should have gotten dressed first.”
Why had she said that? Look at me; I don’t have any clothes on.
He glanced at her again, but the big white robe covered her more than any of her clothes. “Yes, but it would be weird if you went in and came back out. I don’t know if anyone can hear us, but they can see us.”
Down in the parking lot, the construction workers were getting into their vans. If any of them looked up, they would certainly see the balconies, and the plate glass windows of the fitness center’s second-floor yoga studio gave an even better view.
“Look over there”—he pointed to the west—“so it looks like we are talking about the mountains.”
“Okay.” Over the roof of the fitness center she could see the western mountains. On the lower slopes the trees were shaded from a light yellowy spring green to a green that was rich and dark. In the distance the higher peaks were smoky blue against the clouds.
But he wasn’t out here to discuss the view. “Obviously they brought us to this place because there aren’t any more alternates. But I don’t think that this pampering is going to be enough.”
The beauty of the hills and trees was dissolved, swamped by the sounds of construction vans’ doors slamming shut and their engines grinding. “Seth, I told you I was not going to have any kind of conversation like this.”
“No. No. Please. Hear me out. This is a million times better than the Best Western, but I am not sure that it is enough. I still think if there is going to be a mistrial it is better to have it sooner rather than later.”
She pulled her sash tighter. “You have made that very clear.”
Why did he have to be like this? Why couldn’t he be perfect? She wanted him to be perfect.
No, no. She didn’t want him to be perfect. It was safer to be mad at him.
“I do know when to cut my losses. Maybe this doesn’t have to be a loss. But the only way I can see to all twelve of us making it to deliberations—”
“Make it to deliberations? I thought that was the exact opposite of what you wanted.”
“We’re another week into it now, and maybe this is throwing good money after bad, but if we are going to hang in there, we need to work together.”
“Work together? You are saying that?” This felt good, being mad at him. “Didn’t you spend the entire afternoon monopolizing one machine?”
He drew back. “I would have gotten off if anyone had asked.”
“And who is going to tell Mr. Professional Athlete to get off so that they can do a three-pound bicep curl?”
“Now, wait.” He was sounding pissed off too. “I have never played that card.”
“You don’t have to. Everyone knows who you are.”
He took a breath. “This is my point. If you and I are at each other’s throats already, then something’s going to blow up unless all twelve of us decide to pull together.”
Caitlin jerked at the sash of her robe. She was not at his throat; she was nowhere near his throat. “What in the name of everything holy do you think I have been doing for the last week except to try to keep everyone happy?”
“Right, but it’s just been you trying to keep everyone happy, people wanting to sit next to you, talk to you, take their troubles to you. Everything runs through you, and you’re exhausted.”
That was true. She was tired, tired of playing the games she didn’t want to play, tired of feeling guilty that she hadn’t helped Yvette on the machines, tired of not being touched, tired of never being alone, but always feeling alone.
If I’d wanted to be a navy wife, I would have dated sailors.
“What are you suggesting?” she asked. This was hard for her, having a conversation without looking at him. She was so visual. She didn’t only listen to people’s words, but watched their faces, the play of their lips, the rise and fall of their eyebrows.
“That all twelve of us sit down and figure this out together,” Seth said, “what we need to do to make it. We won’t talk about the case, we will do it in front of the deputies, but all twelve of us will do it together.”
“I hope you aren’t expecting me to lead this meeting?”
“No, of course not. I’ll do it.”
But he had paused, leaving her wondering if that had been part of his original plan.
“Then I think,” she said, “it’s important that you just be speaking for yourself, not for the two of us. If this is ‘our’ plan, people aren’t going to feel like equal partners. This conversation has to have never happened. As long as it doesn’t seem like we’re working together, I will have your back.”
* * * *
The inn stocked only breakfast items for the guests, but the innkeeper and his wife did have a store of groceries for their own use. They told Marcus that he could use their personal supplies for this first night, but their financial arrangement with the court only covered breakfast.
Dinner began with a cold carrot soup, spicy with ginger. Marcus apologized for the ginger being powdered, but no one cared. He served a roasted vegetable medley, apologizing the portions were small. The entrée was chicken in Thai peanut sauce. He apologized that the chicken had been frozen in a bag and he had had to start with processed peanut butter. No one cared. People were thrilled with the food, with the rooms, the fitness studio, the library, the bath products, the chocolates on the table, the filtered water, the fancy toilets, the wonderful mattresses, the showers, the whirlpool tubs.
For dessert Marcus had melted some of the candies from the front hall and dipped orange slices in the chocolate. He apologized that the chocolate didn’t have a glossy finish. No one cared.
Seth hadn’t said much. So apparently this open, problem-solving, rally-around-the-flag discussion wasn’t going to happen. That was good. How much easier it would be for her to go on being disappointed in him. They could be cordial through the rest of the trial, then go their separate ways. She would be the one who wanted things to end; she would be the one in charge, the one with power.
You disappointed me. I don’t want you. That was power.
People started talking about evening plans. The inn had movies they hadn’t seen, books they hadn’t read, games they hadn’t played.
“Count me out.” Dave pushed back from the table. “I’m going up to my room. That chair is the first comfortable place I’ve sat since this whole thing started.”
Others were scooping up their silverware, getting ready to help clear the table. Caitlin did not look at Seth. This is on you. I’m not going to push.
“Could you all please wait a bit?”
It was Seth. So he was going to come through.
“There’s something I would like us all to talk about.”
Ryan, the deputy who had been sitting in the corner of the dining room, stood up.
Seth spoke to him. “I am not going to talk about the case. Trust me. I’m not. In fact, if Sally is still around, ask her to come in. We want witnesses to the fact that we aren’t talking about the case.”
Ryan said something into the radio clipped to his shoulder, and an instant later Sally and another deputy rushed in, alert, worried, expecting a problem. Ryan shook his head. “They’re going to have some kind of meeting and want us to listen.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Sally asked, looking at Seth.
How did she know that he was the one behind this? Because he was the only one who’d had his face on a magazine cover?
No. Sally was observant; she was smart. She would know that an Olympic medal didn’t mean a person had leadership skills. She must be seeing something in Seth that Caitlin wasn’t. And Sally wouldn’t have forgotten that he was a Street of Street Boards, the town’s biggest employer. No one would think it odd if a Street took charge.
“I think I know where the lines are,” Seth was saying to Sally. “But stop us if we get close.”
She nodded and went to stand against the wall. She’d had a long day; her hair was flat, her shirt was coming untucked, and her pants had big wrinkles at the top of her legs.
Seth looked around the table, then started. “It’s clear that we have no more alternates, and the court is worried. The question for us is how committed are we to making it to deliberations. Do we have that as a common goal? If we don’t agree on that, we should just tell the court that it’s hopeless. Don’t spend any more money on us; start over with another jury.”
“You mean we would leave here?” Yvette sounded frantic. “No. No. I’ve never been anywhere like this before. I don’t want to go home.”
All the others were taking his question seriously and nodding their agreement.
Caitlin watched each one of them, trying to judge their commitment. They were all on board. As different as they were, there was one thing that the twelve of them had in common—they were the sort of people who showed up. They didn’t oversleep and get to work late. They didn’t say that they’d pick you up at the airport and then forget. They didn’t promise to bring cookies and then instead turn up with ice cream that needed bowls and spoons. They did what they said they were going to do. All of them.
Video games were full of heroes. But wasn’t this the first part of any kind of heroism? Showing up? Before storming Omaha Beach, before ripping your petticoat to make tourniquets for wounded soldiers, before drawing your gun on a gravity-heavy planet, you had to show up. And the twelve of them showed up.
“It’s not enough to agree on the goal,” Seth continued. “What do we need to do to make it happen? What’s our biggest concern? What do we need to have happen?”
The food. Everyone agreed on that. After Marcus’s dinner this evening no one wanted to go back to fast food.
Marcus had thought about this. If the deputies were willing to go to the grocery store instead of restaurants, he believed he could provide far better meals for less money. Stephanie said that she would help with the prep or cleaning up. “Because of what I do at the bakery, I have had the Food Handler’s training if anyone is worried about that.”
No one was. Sally said that she would need to talk to the judge, but if it didn’t change the budget, she
couldn’t see why he would refuse. Ryan pointed out that grocery shopping once every few days would save a lot of man-hours over having to pick up fast food twice a day. “The judge is really going to like that.”
“We have to stay healthy,” Norma said. “Watch the basics. Wash your hands a lot. And I mean it. Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice while you are doing it.”
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...Caitlin started to run the song through her heard. “Twice? That’s a lot.”
“Well, do it. And tell me if you think you’re getting a cold, a prickly throat, anything. Don’t suffer in silence. I’m sure that there will be some way to get you on an antibiotic fast if that’s what you need. And everyone needs to get more exercise, even if it is just walking around the courtyard.”
Boredom and passivity was another issue. Dave asked Caitlin if she could resume art lessons. Keith wondered if there were any projects around the inn that they could help with; he was tired of not being productive. April said if people asked their families to bring in photos, she would help them make scrapbook pages. Gradually they developed a schedule of activities.
“And we have to stick to it. We can’t let ourselves mope around like we did this week,” Joan said. “But there’s something else. Our interpersonal dynamics, how we get along. We have to see if we can fix that.”
No one said anything.
“People are getting on each other’s nerves,” she prompted. “We need to have it out in the open.”
The Fourth Summer Page 15
